Christmas = Over

Christmas is over and I'm back to work today. I just spent a good couple of hours going through a file and transferring info from one to the other, so I wanted to take a quick break and relax a bit. So, it's time for a quick blog update.

We were going to have a little get-together last weekend with some of Julia's out-of-town family last weekend, but the snow kept everyone home and we reschedules for this weekend. And really, the snow was pretty crazy. Actually, all week (and more) has been crazy with snow, icy streets, slush, and cold. Seattle is not a city of extremes, so a week of sub-freezing temperatures and more than a foot of snow accumulation is really just too much for the residents. Everyone without a 4x4 or experience driving on crappy, crappy streets is pretty much house-bound. The streets are so bad because the cities don't have the equipment to handle the snow and so one layer never gets cleared off and forms the base of the next layer and so on. It leads to icy, slushy, uneven streets that are pretty tricky to drive on. I've seen more than a few cars trapped in deep snow on side streets. I'm very happy my house is on a main thoroughfare.

Christmas was spent at Julia's parents' place. Christmas Eve had about half-dozen of us being lazy, talking, eating, and reading. Christmas day was more of everything; more people, more talking, more eating, oh, and present opening. Julia's family gave her a number of heirloom rings that we can use to make her wedding band. That was pretty cool. And Julia even bought me my wedding band! It's made of tungsten, too! One of my favorite metals. (Such a geek.)

Other highlights included some money (which will go into the 'new computer' fund), an iPod Touch, new tennis shoes, the 3rd season of Deadwood on DVD, some clothes, a new beard trimmer, a board game, and some other goodies. The rings were really the best part of it, though.

And today I'm back at work. Tonight I'm headed out again to go to Julia's nephew's birthday party and tomorrow we're having some of her family over for the get-together that was supposed to happen last weekend. I'm all peopled out, but it's been a good week.

Time to write some emails and then get out of here. Later.