Happy New Year!

Okay, so since this past week was such a blur, I'm going to try to capture some more of it. The rest of the weekend was quiet and relaxing. We rented a few movies. Mom and Dad came over to watch a couple of them. We watched the new Batman movie, the title of which escapes me at the moment, though I did like the movie. It's actually the first of the Batman franchise I've ever seen. We also watched Burn After Reading. That was a peculiar one but we made it to the end.

We also had rented Tropic Thunder, which we watched the following evening with Jason and Claire. Pretty ridiculous and twisted, but with a few laughs along the way. And, if I hadn't known Robert Downey Jr. was in the movie before I saw it, I wouldn't have believed it was him portraying a black character until he revealed his unmasked face.

Chris and I both returned to work on Monday, which SUCKED except for all the good stuff that happened that day! I was busy contemplating how I should have taken the week off when I got the BEST NEWS. Marsha called me and she and Ryan had their baby early Monday morning!!! I was crying and blubbering all over the phone. I was so touched to hear from Marsha and so proud and happy for her! His name is Heath Ryan Kazakoff, and I cannot WAIT to get some pictures! Congratulations Marsha and Ryan!!! In keeping with the great day, I had lunch with Mom and Auntie Lurdes and Kelly (THANKS KELLY!!!) We had a great lunch and I headed back to work for a much more quiet afternoon. It was really hard to think about anything besides Marsha's new little family! :)

Tuesday was much of the same except I didn't get any thrilling news. I did however have a great lunch out with Mom and Dad. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) By the time Wednesday rolled around it was AWESOME to have a weekend in the middle of the week! I did a little shopping on New Year's Eve for some party-type snacks.

Ian and Seija came over with their adorable baby Aila. All we did was eat and watch hockey all evening, which was fabulous! We intended to play some games, but we were all pretty FULL and tired. First we had a cheese fondue courtesy of Seija and Ian. YUMMY! Crispy and soft chunks of bread dipped in ooey gooey melted cheese, and some veggies to dip too! I had picked up a bunch of M&M munchies, starting with the hot artichoke/spinach/cheese dip. That stuff ROCKS. We had it with crackers, and the veggies and bread also dipped quite well in there too! We also had buffalo wings (my favourite...Chris can't stand them!) the hors d'oeuvre quartet (a variety of filled pastries), bacon-wrapped scallops, and DEATH BY CHOCOLATE! The dessert came far later than all the other munchies.

I had planned on having a few drinks, but I crammed in so much food that I didn't even have room! I'm not too sure what time Seija and Ian and Aila left, but the kids were still up for awhile. I seem to recall seeing 11:44 on the clock. Gee I was so close to the countdown. Chris was completely zonked on the other couch!

This morning Chris treated us to coffee. As a group effort we undecorated the living room. I didn't have anywhere near all my Christmas decorations out so it was pretty easy, and Chris actually had the patience to wait for me to put everything into the right boxes before taking them to the basement for me. I'll only have to wonder a little where he put everything this year!

He cleared the driveway and took the kids outside to play while he shoveled and snow-blowed (blew the snow with the snowblower!) Carter came in first, but Cooper was still having a blast out there. Chris took him for a ride and brought him back asleep. Cindy and Bob had called to invite us out to their cabin. I left Cooper all dressed in his snowsuit and boots and got ready.

We went out to the cabin and although I had ski-pants and boots on with my new coat, I mostly stayed inside. The kids had a blast outside sliding. Even Cooper was a toboganning maniac! ANDGUESSWHOFORGOTTHEFREAKINGCAMERAATHOME? Yeah, that would be ME. I did borrow Dad's camera to take a few pictures, and there were a few other cameras there. I'll have to go visit everyone and hold their camera cards hostage to load all the pictures on the laptop. Oooooh...and speaking of camera cards, I found me a 16GB camera card at Wal-Mart's big Boxing Day sale. I can take about six thousand pictures with that sucker! I'm thinking now I won't delete any pictures when I transfer them to the computer. And if possible I'll just keep all the pictures on the card as a backup and get more cards as I need them. < /NERDLY rant>

I had eaten the rest of the buffalo wings not long before we left for the cabin. I had no desire to eat. I was sipping on a Pepsi when they started dishing out tons and tons of food. Bob's parents were whipping up homemade chicken balls, egg rolls, chicken-fried rice and ribs. I was trying to politely decline eating anything, but it looked so good! I managed to put away a few chicken balls, a pile of rice, and a couple egg rolls. Then the dessert rolled out. We visited for awhile and came home. It felt like it had to be at least nine o'clock and it was barely past six!

We came home and I continued watching the Corner Gas marathon I started watching earlier. If I had the inclination and/or energy to, I could watch it until three in the morning. I doubt I'll last that long!

Tomorrow Chris and I return to work again. Kinda cool that our mini-week starts and ends on a Friday! Then we get a real weekend and launch into the real beginning of the work year on Monday. I'm still kicking myself a little for not taking at least Friday off this week! I'll have to plan better next year at this time!