Holiday recap, Football, Puppy horror, Lord of Rings marathon

The 4 day Xmas weekend has come and gone. The post xmas letdown is in effect although it isn’t terribly severe. I had a good weekend, mostly. On Christmas Eve we went to the neighbors for dinner. Like our prior experience there, the amount of food was incredible. We had 9 people total, there was enough food to feed 30, at least. We had a nice dinner, eating way more than we should. We got home after 10 and went to bed shortly thereafter. I didn’t really have a ton of anticipation that the next day was Christmas. That Florida winter effect was mostly responsible I think.

On Christmas day I slept LATE, 6:30 am. That is very late for Christmas. However, I was the first one up so I took the dog out, ate my breakfast, turned on the tree lights and the train and waited for mom and Ali to get up. Mom got up shortly after me, Ali not until around 7:30. The gift exchange was fun, I got way more than I expected. It was a bit of a bummer because obviously Ali and I buy a lot more for each other than we do for mom so we were opening 4 or 5 presents for every one mom did. Ali liked her stuff even though the majority of it were different books. Her two big gifts from me were a mp3 player to replace the one that was stolen from the gym and a gift certificate for a half day spa package. (repeat gift from last year) I got several dvd’s I wanted, a few xbox games (including a replacement from Nicki for the one she destroyed), several new indoor volleyball’s, replacement floormats for the Tacoma, and a way cool clock that displays the time with pins that I asked for. All very cool stuff.

We made and received a number of family phone calls and we spent some time cleaning up the carnage from present opening. We decided that in preparation for going to see Return of the King on Friday we would watch 1 and 2 first. In total we spent 9 plus hours watching Lord of the Rings movies. So we fired up number one, 3 hours or so later we finished up just in time to get ready for dinner number two at the neighbors. Again, there was way too much food. I wasn’t really into it. I just didn’t feel like being social for whatever reason. I think all the gluttony was bothering me as well. To keep things interesting I brought Nicki over to join the party. She ran wild and was the entertainment. Ali was really enjoying the family atmosphere but I was ready to head home. Once we went home, the post holiday thing set in and I realized that even though Xmas was fun it just didn’t really feel like Xmas. Just something I have to deal with, it’ll never be as good as it once was.

Friday was Lord of the Rings Day. We spent the morning watching Two Towers, another 3 hour investment. In retrospect it was helpful to watch one and two again to refresh the storyline for us. That afternoon we went to see Return of the King. This was the longest of the trilogy, clocking in at about 3 hours and 20 minutes. It was very good, certain parts drug on a bit but it was an impressive flick. I did have a couple questions that possibly could be answered here. (possible spoiler so skip to next paragraph if you don’t want to know ANYTHING about the movie) Why did Gandolph not use any magic in the epic battles in the end? He is beating guys with a stick and hand to hand combat, yet he is a wizard? Why not use his uber magic to kill bunches of orcs at once? Is the ghost warrior thing part of the original book? That part of it was kind of dumb to me, Aragorn brings his ghost buddies with to kick ass. The part where Sam is rushing up the orc tower to save Frodo was silly. The orcs just happen to fight each other and in the process clean out the entire tower for Sam? And finally, where are they going on the boat at the end? My wife said it was to go die but that make no sense, why would the Elves be going since they never die and Gandolph who has lived for hundreds of years? And why would Frodo be shipping off to die? Any wisdom on these issues would be appreciated. 🙂

Saturday was housework day. We cleaned and organized. We got word from Mom that she was a go for her new place and in fact had a key to it already! She will be moving within a couple weeks! It will be wierd to have her out but I think it will workout better for all of us. She will be a stone’s throw from work and the beach which will relieve a lot of stress for her. We will go back to a more normal existence. My mom tries to be as unobtrusive as possible but it’s impossible to not have issues in a situation where you are living with a parent. We also got word that Alison’s good friend and her daughter were coming down for a last minute visit this upcoming weekend. So we had to clean out the spare bedroom that was filled with all sorts of junk as it had become our repository for anything that we did not currently have a place for. We had all of the labor done by around 2 or 3pm, not bad. That included my organizing the garage and washing both of our vehicles.

Saturday evening the Eagles played. It was an important game because they needed the win to lock up the division title and to ensure they had a first round bye. They smoked the Redskins and played well. They still had a shot to win homefield advantage if the Rams managed to lose to the Lions which was very unlikely. BUT, miracles of miracles, they lost! I was cheering on the Lions like they were my team, it was great! The Ram’s choke means all playoff games this year will be home games for the Birds. Hopefully this year will be their year. The last day of the season saw a lot of wild finishes and big chokes. The Ram’s choke was huge but the Viking’s was equally impressive. All they had to do was beat the lowly Cardinals to get in to the playoffs. Instead, they lost on the last play of the game on a 4th and 24. Unbelievable.

Sunday morning was a puppy horror show. I woke up about 7:30 and was enthusiastically greeted by her. My mom already had let her out. However while I was petting her I noticed she had dried gunk in her fur. What the? I looked at her one stuffed animal that is kept in her crate with her, covered with brown stuff. I shot a glance at her crate. Her pillow is covered in diarrhea, just covered in it. A picture of my face at that very moment would have been classic. I immediately wake up Alison and said, “Nicki needs to get a bath now, she shit her crate!” Those words worked better than any alarm clock has on Ali. She shot up and saw the damage. It was gruesome. We also noticed Nicki’s nose was raw. Evidently she was trying to cover it up by rubbing her nose on the pillow, so much so that it bled. We felt bad for her. Our immediate thoughts were that the switch we just made to adult dog food for her may have had an adverese affect. We drug her into the shower and washed the excrement off. Gross. At one point Ali said to me that I did not need to have such a disgusted look on my face. I asked her if she expected me to have a big toothy grin? I mean come on… We got her clean, Ali threw her bed and stuffed animals in the wash and the worst was over. I decided to not even ask my mom why she was just letting Nicki walk around the house with dried shit on her as opposed to keeping her outside until we did something but decided to not pursue it.

The rest of the day was relaxed. We went for a 3 and half mile walk, I finished Hunter Redeemer (a bit disappointing) and then watched the Lions win, flew my plane a bit and enjoyed the day. The weather all weekend was just about perfect. Mid 70’s, open up the windows, this is why we moved to Florida weather.

I did frequently check the news sites over the weekend hoping I would not see news of any terrorist events popping up. Thankfully, the big holiday attack they feared didn’t materialize but unfortunately we will probably always be on permanent alert, anyday could be the next disaster.

Long recap but what did you expect after a 4 day weekend. I have another one coming up this weekend, woohoo.