Holiday: Part 2

Monday, December 26th, officially set off my week-o-laziness. Here's the second half of the recount of my vacation adventures. We’ll do this one bulleted style, because I can’t be bothered nor do I want to bore you with chronology:

• I saw a few movies over the week. First there was The Family Stone, which I saw a matinee of with Dan and my brother Nathan and which I loved loved loved. God I loved that movie. “It” girl Rachel McAdams is hysterical and beautiful, Luke Wilson is the dreamiest slacker-pothead ever, Diane Keaton is always amazing and gorgeous, but most surprising was how much I fell in love with Craig T. Nelson, his performance as the voice-of-reason father was so tender and heartbreaking, it totally came out of left field for me. I also saw Pride and Prejudice with my mom the other night at the $3 theatre nearby, and I was and still am thoroughly smitten with the dashing Mr. Darcy. I’m thinking Matthew MacFayden kicked some major Colin Firth ass with his performance. I would highly recommend this version, and Kiera Knightly was also the perfect Elizabeth Bennett. (I have to throw that in there, even though Pride and Prejudice is so all about Mr. Darcy as far as I’m concerned.)
• My brother Ben brought his girlfriend home to meet the family for a few days. She is very tiny, super cute, quite shy, and just an over-all sweet girl. I think my family intimidated her a little bit at the beginning, as I’m assuming conversations with her parents don’t usually involve blow-jobs and peanut butter, and I’m quite certain her mom doesn’t have uncontrollable bouts of flatulence and subsequent giggle fits at the dinner table, but I’m thinking she was warming up to us by the end of her three-day stay.
• I went to the Mall of America three fricken times over the course of a week, which is really quite ridiculous. I never go to the Mall of America, it’s huge, exhausting, overwhelming, and of course always packed with annoying teenage shoppers and tourists alike. However, for many reasons that are too dull to recount, I went there three times this week. Thankfully, I didn’t spend very much money, my purchases just included a knee-length jean skirt on sale at the GAP, and a pair of cropped black trousers, two long-sleeve v-neck knit tops, and a funky gold belt all from NY&Co. It really was nice, though, to do so much shopping this week that did not involve Christmas presents. I am so glad that is all over, and the countless items on my countless lists are not only all crossed off, but the lists themselves are in the trash.
• I went skiing on Thursday with some friends, and it felt so good to be back on skis after about two years away from them, even if it was on just a stupid hill in Minnesota. I also bought some super cute new ski pants for the occasion and for the first time in many, many years, did not feel like a big pile of ugliness on the slopes. The family is planning a ski trip to Colorado next January and I can’t wait. Lisa skied for the first time since our 6th grade field trip to Welch Village when my mom (obviously the chaperone from hell) took her down a black-diamond run and forever scarred her. Lisa is awesome.
• I only worked out twice during my 10 days of vacation. I’m a bum. Surprisingly, I didn’t and still don’t feel that guilty about it, even though I was replacing my work-outs with extra sleep and lunch dates. Ha.
• Angela bought me the Season 6 DVD collection of Buffy, and Ben bought me Season 10 of Friends, so I only need Buffy Seasons 2-5 and 7 and Friends Seasons 1-4 and 6-9, and I’ll have both sets! ;) Click here if you’d like to help me complete my collections.
• New Years Eve was actually totally fun this year, which is surprising, because I usually find it to be one of the biggest let-downs of the year. Dan’s brother and his wife had their annual party, and I got quite a bit trashed on Margaritas. Yummm… We played some Celebrity Taboo, because we always have to play board games, and of course Dan and I got into a little tussle. Betsy was totally right when she said we shouldn’t have been sitting next to each other. How about I lay out the scenario and you tell me who’s right and who’s wrong here: I am trying to get my team to guess Sean Astin, the dude from Rudy, Goonies, and most recently Lord of the Rings. If I remember correctly, they were on to his first name, they totally knew who I was talking about, and to get them to spit it out I said… “His last name is like the city in Texas!” So my team members are like, “Sean Astin!” but they pronounced it with an Aaahh, like the city Austin. Ok, so not only is that how I honestly thought you said his name, but my team member who guessed (I think it was Angela) was, without a doubt, talking about the same person. So I hurriedly moved on to the next card, which caused uproar from Dan, who was the one sitting next to me with the buzzer. According to him (and his friend Ed who is the most competitive asshole when it comes to stupid board games) the name is pronounced “ass-tin”. Whatever, in my opinion that small pronunciation discrepancy should have been completely irrelevant, but instead we wasted precious time fighting about it during my turn. The tone of the game changed from there on out, and I desperately wanted to give both Dan and Ed a swift kick in the head. ;) Anyways, so portions of the rest of the night are a little hazy (I do specifically remember, however, dropping my new digital camera into my champagne glass) but all-in-all it was a great time, and I woke up hangover free the next morning!
• Dan woke up New Years day feeling like utter crap, and has been battling a horrible debilitating cold ever since, poor guy. I just hate when he’s sick, because I feel so helpless. I’ve been sleeping in the guest bedroom to try to avoid getting sick myself, so this week has, on the whole, been pretty sucky when you top it all off with having to return to work. I can’t wait for the weekend.