Merry-go-Round

Welcome to California in San Diego! There were other family members that came to celebrate..aunts, uncles, cousins...but this pic is of the main gang. Just in case you are curious: Skip is the guy on the far left (Tim's step-bro..we are in his apartment-where all the festivities were held..also, where Tim and I stayed), Rich is next to Skip sitting in the chair (Tim's step-dad..aka "dad"), then you've got Tim and myself and Tim's mom, Rhoda standing behind me, below me is Tim's sister-in-law Megan who is married to the guy sitting next to her whose name is Nate (Tim's other step-brother) and their three kids, Sariah, Rachel and John. Then we've got Tony (Tim's real bro), with his wife, Beth and their daughter Allie. WHEW!

San Diego was beautiful. We had a great time staying with Skip..who cooked a fan-flippin-tastic Christmas dinner! (AND cooked the next day for Tim's B-day) Holy cow....We had turkey, pork, sweet potatoes, green beans with mushrooms, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy (my favorite), an amazing salad, this raspberry chutney sorta thing to go with the turkey, pumpkin cheese cake, wine, beer, sparkling juice. All homemade ('cept for the alcohol :) ). It was DELICIOUS!! AND when everyone went back to their hotels and it was just Skip, Tim and I.....talk about some sweet leftovers. Skip was a great host. He took Tim and I out and about, we met a couple of his friends, went to a great piano bar, and woke up with headaches from some great nights out. I learned that he doesn't like being in pictures, though. So this pic was my attempt to be in a picture together. He was doing the dishes. But if you look closely at his face...it looks like he's smiling. I think he secretly LIKES to be in pictures..
This is the little balcony/porch where we all had Christmas dinner. There was a bigger table decorated just like this one to the right. And we all had assigned seats...heh heh. The sunny 60 degree weather was a nice touch too.
On Christmas Eve we all went to Sea World, which I have to say is the weirdest thing I've ever done on Christmas Eve. Watching dolphins swim rather than watching snow fall. We all had a great time. Tim and I snuck away for a little bit and saw a 3-D movie and play in the Sea World arcade...you know how much we love video games. (My favorite are the ones where you win the tickets!)
Nothing too outrageous happened. They are a funny family though. That picture at the top of the whole gang took a while to get everyone together. We all KNOW how taking family pictures can be. So right before that pic was taken, when I heard Rhoda say "Lets get a picture of everyone," I started video taping with our digital camera just to see how long it would take everyone to get situated. It was 3 solid minutes of: "Okay..come over here.""Now Rhoda will be in the back.""Come on girls.""Allie, come here, please.""Okay, okay..pardon me.""Right, well where are we facing?""Rachel, Sariah, come sit please.""Who's taking the picture?""Uncle Don, he's got it.""Okay, are we ready?""Let me just move over here.""Can we all fit?" The video is hilarious.
I'd have to say that one of the highlights was a simple little walk Tim and I took on Christmas morning. We walked around the neighborhood and everyone was SO friendly. (A lot different than Chicago, where most people don't like making eye contact). It was BEAUTIFUL out there. SO many different kinds of plants and trees and flowers and everything was GREEN...and growing..full of life. We just walked around, talked some of the time, and soaked it all up.

I missed my family very much. Merry Christmas.

NOWADAYS:

The Bish just played at this venue called the METRO this past Saturday. It is a fantastic venue and pretty encouraging that they played there. Word on the street is there were around 700 people there. That was the biggest crowd they've every played for. Ye-ha! There were four other bands that played BUT Timmy's band was the only one that had an approx 16ft x 16ft screen behind them that had crazy fast moving visuals displayed on it. Choreographed by....ME! I was the little video DJ for the Bish. Together: music + visuals = a great great great show. Here's a pic from the show.






LAST BUT NOT LEAST:
My new favorite video game...that I do not own YET is: GUITAR HERO!
I played it for the first time last night with some friends...all boys, mind you. And they were very impressed with my GIRL skills. I think I ALMOST did the best.....almost.

Until next time, Guitar Hero.