Tuesday – 26 December 2006
The hours tick away and will soon bring an end to my winter excursion. It’s been a good vacation – good (and needed) time out of Utah. It has been great to see family and friends again, but “the real world” beckons. Tomorrow afternoon, I board a plane to chase the sun; tomorrow night, I will step off of a plane in the Land Behind the Zion Curtain. (Maybe matchbox twenty was on to something when they said “I wish the real world would just stop hassling me…”)

Christmas was good. My folks and I slept in a little and then opened presents. Correction: Most of our presents – we decided to wait until my uncle got in to open our gifts from him, so that he could open our gifts at the same time. Kris and I went to PTIA to pick him up and brought him home. By the time we got back, company had arrived for dinner – we had nine people join us for dinner. The meal was, as usual, very good.

We – the fam-unit, a couple of friends of the family and one of Mom’s former students – went to see The Pursuit of Happyness. I’ve been wanting to see this ever since I first saw the trailer for it. It was worth the wait. I’d be highly surprised – and very disappointed – if Will Smith doesn’t get an Oscar nod to go along with his Golden Globe nomination.

Today was pre-travel prep day. Translation: “I washed my dirty clothes and started packing things for tomorrow.” It didn’t take too long. Aside from waiting for the laundry to finish. That took a while. But, it was anticipated. (Anticipa-a-tion… It’s making me wait…) I ran a couple of errands around town with my uncle and then spent a portion of the afternoon hanging out around the house.

Tonight, I went to dinner at Smokey Bones with Christine, Thomas and Don. Good food… and I got to cross it off of my “places to eat while at home” list. So, I batted 1.000 in that respect. It was good to see and spend time with Don & Co…. and Thomas is getting big FAST. And precocious…? Yeah. In spades. And he’s definitely Christine and Don’s kid. After dinner, we headed to Borders (yeah, 2000 miles away and I can’t stay out of that place…) for coffee and books.

After that, I paid a visit to William, Charlie and their kids. The kids are getting big, too – Britney and Josh can almost look me in the eye and Connor’s grown so much in the past six months that I almost didn’t recognize him. (Okay, that’s not entirely true, but he has put on a few inches.) Hanging out here was good, too.

I didn’t quite bat the cycle, as far as seeing people goes, but it’s the holiday season and that’s the way it goes sometimes. I’m glad for being able to spend time around those with whom I was able to catch up, though.

Stray Toasters

Namaste.