Catch up

To be honest I have no idea of where to even begin with the events that have occurred December 17th. Sarah, Ryan and Jeff came up to Joplin and helped celebrate the occassion with Pam and Nelly on Saturday evening. A few bottles of wine and champagne later everyone was laughing and having a great time and playing Sarah's ingenious game of "Guess Who" which of course isn't its official name but since at the moment I can't remember what the official name of the game is/was that is the name I'll be giving to it. And if its really important to someone then just read the comments as I'm certain Sarah will post the real name of the game below. :) The next day amid tearful goodbyes Sarah, Ryan and Jeff left for San Antonio and Dallas and I began to pack for the next adventure. After completing the arduous task of cleaning up :) I left for Kansas City to administer a MOD Certification and enjoy a brief respite from the rigors of property management as I had forgotten my cell phone charger and thus was unable to be contacted by the home property. Oooops, or would that be a subconscious decision on my part to leave it behind and thus avoid the all to frequent phone calls from the property. Regardless my phone quickly died as those who know me know that talking is never an issue, not talking is. So I had three days of no contact with anyone at all. I never realized how fun it could be to disconnect.

Dennis and I had a blast during the MOD Certification, we revisited our favorite restraunt in Kansas City, the ZIN and talked about the changes forthcoming within both of our lives. After a fantastic 5 course dinner including new wines with each course and a decadent dessert selection we went to the Phoenix club and another blues club in honor of the upcoming holidays. The next day I officially left for vacation and headed up North to MN and WI for Christmas. Of course that was after I frantically searched three different Sprint stores for a charger for my new Sprint Treo 650--thanks for the great graduation gift Sarah and Ryan! By the way the week before Chirstmas is not a good time to visit any gadget store as they typically run out phones, chargers and other necessary accessories quickly, but they still had an overabundance of pink leather phone cases that they were very eager to sell(hideous, truly hideous!)

The next few days seemed to fly at the speed of light and in the midst of holiday baking with my sister, spending as much time as possible with my niece and nephew, visiting with my brother, mom and dad and grandmothers on both sides, I realized just how important it to maintain those family traditions which we have carried on for years in addition to making way for new traditions. Christmas eve was the traditional meal, gifts for the kids and general chaos. It was fantastic to see the faces of my niece and nephew (Jasmine and Caleb) and cousins, Marie, Mitchell and baby Grant light up when they first caught sight of the multitude of gifts under the tree and the utter abandon with which they tore into the gifts once they were distributed. Christmas Day, my brother invited everyone to his house for dinner and he prepared a fantastic meal of wild rabbit with butter cream sauce and linguini and Waldorf Salad. The remainder of the Christmas holiday flew by and on Monday the 26th I returned to Joplin with heavy feet to begin the dreaded process of packing for the move to Dallas.