The Big Family Christmas

Every year we have a big family Christmas. Uncle Floyd's gang travels the farthest from Indiana. This year the party got started early at 1pm! I'm not complaining, it was nice to have some extra time with the fam. I was also excited to meet a new family member, Oliver! He's 4 months old and weighs 17 1/5 lbs! That's how heavy our roast in the oven was!

Grandpa blabbed about how Oliver reminds him of my Dad when he was a baby,"Dale was a fat baby too!". Oh Grandpa. Of course there was a huge feast prepared by everybody. Ham, beef, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, salad, sweet potatoes, rolls, and of course egg rolls. I'm sure some family members just come for the egg rolls because they are so good.
We do a gift exchange every year. Gifts around $10 scattered randomly among family. Here, Josiah is helping Aunt Janice open her gift. We started doing something different last year where a story is told that incorporates the words "left" and "right". Each time one of those words are said, presents are passed in that direction. I kind of liked the white elephant game more, but I guess that takes longer than people would like.

Here's Grandpa and his four children. They all definitely look related.

It was so fun seeing Josiah as he's three years old and a total blabber mouth. When there is a discussion going on and he's not part of it, he'll randomly blabber something out to get everyone's attention so he feel like he's contributing to the conversation. I was jealous of his footed pajamas.

Another silly picture of Julie and I.

Overall it was a fun time. However, it wasn't the same without my sisters, their kids, and the other cousins.

Some New Kicks!

I got some new sneakers! They're Onisuka Tiger Ultimate 81's. The picture below is actually of the first pair I received but I returned them because they were too big. I have always thought my shoe size was 11.5. Since Onisuka Tiger is owned by Asics. I have a pair of Asics in size 12, so I was certain that 11.5 would fit but they were way too big. So I had them returned and got the 11's which were still a little big but the 10.5's that I tried on at the mall were two narrow for my stupidly wide feet. The cool thing about sneakers these days is that most of them come with two pairs of laces of different color!

I'm still unsure which laces I prefer. At first I was leaning towards the white/grey laces, but now I'm rocking the blue laces, since blue is my favorite color. Let me know what you think!

Munchkin Cats!

Have you ever heard of munchkin cats? Cats with stubby legs that tend to stand on their hind legs, and they are also known as "munchies". Not sure how I feel about them. Sure they look cute and I want to squeeze one like a stuffed animal but apparently their prone to back problems like daschunds. According to the International Cat Association, their short legs are a natural mutation and are just as healthy as any other feline. The one below reminds me of Chloe but not as cute. >'.'<.

Sergeant In Town

Its been decided, Henry is now "Sergeant Mint Pepperson". Not sure what army he is a sergeant of because he seems to be a loner.

Joel pointed him out while he was running around back of the house. I would really like to know what is out there that is of interest to him. I hope he isn't making a nest in my car.

New Gloves

I got some new snowboarding gloves for Christmas. They were ordered from Park 2 Peak. They seemed to have the best deal for the gloves I was looking for. I was surprised when I received them because there was a hand written "Thank You" message written on the invoice.

Not often you get hand written message from online shopping companies. I just might be ordering from them again!

Joel Came to Town!

My old roommate Joel came into the area! Its been like two years since I've seen him. He currently resides in Seattle as a chef. He graduated with a digital media degree...but apparently he really likes cooking!

I pretty much spent 48 hours with Joel while he was in town. I met up with him at Graham's and from there we went to Belgium Cafe where a bunch of Jules' friends were meeting. It was a little awkward as they are all pursuing their Phd while I'm just bum. But things got a lot more comfortable once we sat a table and ordered a big pot of mussels and beer. After a snack, one of the things on Joel's list was a cheesesteak, a real one. Apparently they don't know how to make them out west, go figure.

Joel swears by Geno's. Its amazing we're still friends. Since he was going over to Geno's I figured this would be perfect opportunity to end which steak is better. My one beef with Geno's is their ridiculous neon lights.
After Geno's we headed over to Pat's to get a real cheesesteak. Joel had already eaten two provy wit (provolone with onions) at Geno's and he got a THIRD cheesteak at Pat's. His third steak was a whiz and mushroom.

I of course kept it simple and traditional with whiz and onions. I like to eat my steaks with the delicious peppers they have. Ugh, my mouth is watering right now just looking at these pictures.
After having the cheesesteaks, one thing is certain, their both very delicious. However, the texture of the meat in a Pat's cheesesteak is just what I expect a cheesesteak to be. Geno's keeps their meat sliced. I do think that sliced would be better if you were getting provolone but I prefer my cheesesteak chopped up with a shower of whiz on top. I also got a lot more meat at Pat's. I compared my steak to Graham's and he didn't get as much. They must like me at Pat's even though I rarely ever get down there. After cheesesteaks we headed back to Graham's for Joel's stuff before heading back to my place.

The next day consisted of Joel watching a bunch of movies I have before we met up with Rich, Manthan, and Brett in Cherry Hill, NJ to watch True Grit. The movie was fantastic. I'll have to watch the original with John Wayne. The dialogue in the movie was awesome. We should have a talk like a Western Cowboy day.

After the movie we headed back into the city to Graham's. There we watched a bunch episodes of Californication and Dead Like Me. It wasn't long until we all got hungry and ordered a feast from California Pizza. California Pizza was pretty much what we ate after every night of drinking. One of the most famous menu items is the Cali Fries. French fries piled with mozzarella cheese, bacon, and ranch dressing which is then baked to perfection. This is one of the worst things you can put in your body but it is so stinkin' delicious you can't resist. We ordered three of these as well as a pepperoni pizza and cheese pizza.

California Pizza is something else, I've never come across a pizza that was as greasy as theirs. They seriously must dump a vat of grease on every pizza before it leaves the kitchen because the amount that drips from each slice is ridiculous. I don't remember their pizza tasting good, but it was irresistible if you had the beer munchies. It was also very affordable for the poor college student.
I managed to get a picture of everyone together except Graham. I should have had him take the picture so I could be in it but he was super cranky so I just ended up with this. It was a long ride home as Manthan, Brett, and Joel all got a ride from me. It was about 3:30 am by the time I got to bed, I slept like a baby until my alarm went off at 9 am.
It was great seeing Joel and getting the gang together again. The only person we were missing was JZ, rats. Maybe I can photoshop him in the picture above...

We Be Burnin'

Abby and Josh had a great idea for Christmas presents. They decided to go through the family home videos and convert them to DVDs! They were thinking about sending them off to have a company do them but that can be really expensive real fast if you have a lot of tapes to convert.

Instead, they borrowed the DVD recorder I have. The end product doesn't look as pretty as getting them professionally done, but it sure does cost less. I think Abby had about 40 tapes to go through. After digitizing them, it came out to 12 DVDs. They then asked me to make 4 copies of each, and one of them they just wanted 3 copies.

I was tempted to just put some burning software on their laptops but I figured it would be fun to see how long burning 47 DVDs would take. To make the process go faster, I fired up the three desktops we have in the house. Running up and down the stairs every 5 minutes or so. I also had to label the DVDs with a sharpie so I wouldn't get them mixed up. I was able to do it just under 3 hours. Go me!

Leaning tower of C-Disa?

I Weigh Less Than A Slice Of Bread

I knew it, as soon as I started bottling the cider a fox came around. Silly cider poacher. Actually, he was really interested in the geese in the pond. I wish the geese took me as seriously as the fox. The five geese in the pond wouldn't take their eyes off the fox. Too bad the ice didn't lead closer to the birds, he might be able to get one.

I had a really hard time getting a picture of this guy. My camera kept focusing on bushes and grass instead of the fox. I guess I'll have to figure out the manual focus thing.
As I tried to get a better shot of the fox, I got his attention and scarred him off. I felt bad but it wasn't like he was going to get a bird anyway.
It was so cool seeing him trot across the ice. With his reflection off the ice it was like there were double foxes! What does it mean?!
Here you can seem him having second thoughts about leaving the birds. It would be so epic if I caught footage of him attacking a goose. Geese are pretty vicious, I'm not sure a fox would be able to take on such a large bird.

I wish I had a pet fox. My favorite bat is the fox bat.

I heard on Animal Planet that the fox is actually more closely related to cats than dogs.

I really wish I could have gotten picture in better focus. The foxes coat was so pretty. It looks like he's wearing black socks. Reminds me of a cat named Chloe with white paws.
The fox eventually retreated to the bushes. I wonder if its home is back there. I wonder if I'll see him again. If I do I'll have to name him. I was thinking on the theme of Fantastic Mr. Fox or George Clooney. I'll have to think about it.

Goodbye Mr. Fox, I hope you can get an annoying goose one day.

Christmas Defender of the Universe Morning

I was not looking forward to Christmas morning this year. Usually I get to spend it with at least a sister plus kids or more, but this year it was just the rents and I. On top of that, my mom was really busy with her Catholic church events so she didn't have time to make our long tradition of steak and eggs on Christmas morning. We also have a tradition of reading the Christmas story from the bible and opening Christmas presents following that but apparently we didn't have time for that either.

I woke up Christmas morning late. I threw on a sweat shirt and headed downstairs to the tree. My parents were busy getting ready to leave the house. So I decided to open the two presents my sister Michelle sent me. I then envisioned the rest of my Christmases being like this, alone. I'm sure I'll get use to it. Aunt Janice was kind enough to invite my Dad and I over to their Christmas breakfast.

On the bright side, I got some pretty neat things from Michelle. The first thing I opened was a little random. It was a glass skull decanter. Not sure if I have ever mentioned wanting one of these, but its pretty rad. The cork is a little hard to remove but I'm sure it'll loosen up over time.

The second gift she got me was even more cool, a Voltron 2 GB USB drive!

This thing is so ridiculous. Its preloaded with Voltron desktop wallpapers and an episode from the original series. For you who don't know, Voltron was a pretty big deal in the 80's. The figure comes apart at the waist to reveal the USB plug. Once plugged in, the chest plate lights up during data transfer. Its about 3.5 inches tall and although not very practical to carry around compared to your conventional USB drive, this one defends the universe! Can yours do that?

Didn't think so.

Lunar Eclipse

Hear about that lunar eclipse? You probably did. Well I have nothing to do these day so I decided to capture it via some photography. I thought I just had to stay up until midnight but to my dismay I was misinformed and it turned out that if I wanted to see this eclipse, I had to wait until 2:41 am!

Below you can see what happens if you mess up the auto white balance on your camera.

Took me a couple tries but I was able to get a good shot of the full moon, however, the rest of the shots go down hill from here.
It was freezing that night, but I was determined to capture the moment with my bare hands. I sat in a chair with a tripod with just a sweat shirt and sweat pants. Eventually I got some slippers as my poor piggies were getting cold.
This moon thing is pretty crazy. It was really neat to see the moon get darker over such a short amount of time.

I kind of dropped the ball on shots of the half moon...

Here is the few decent shots I got of the actual eclipse. Pretty crazy the moon gets a red haze over it. I think I read somewhere it due to the earth's atmosphere refracting light onto the moon. There there was no atmosphere on the earth then the moon would be totally black.
The next two pictures came out really dark so I tried to brighten them up. But they ended up just looking unnatural. But you are able to see the craters on the moon.

At this point I was super tired and cold. I ended my shooting frenzy with this last shot. It was a little depressing seeing the professional videos and pictures the next day as they looked a lot better than mine. But at least I got to see it with my own eyes.

Why Did the Goose Cross the Road?

I don't know, but here is a picture of them doing it. They were originally in the yard but I chased them off.

Ugh, they drive me crazy. They live to torment me and poop on my car.

Aunt Janice's Breakfast Feast!

Of course my Dad and I were late to the breakfast. We were told to be there at 10:00 am and we didn't walk in the door until 10:35 am. The only time I'm ever on time for anything is if I drive myself.

Supposedly everyone wasn't waiting too long. Aunt Janice made quite the spread. Quiche, frittata, baked grapefruit with brown sugar, roasted potatoes, cinnabuns, and Christmas ham.

The amount of food was overwhelming. I might as well have been at Shady Maple in Lancaster. Everything was really good. My favorite was the quiche. I kept eating it even after being full.
I always envy their tree. Every year its packed full with presents. As much as I like getting presents, that's not what I look forward to. I really enjoy seeing other people open presents. I guess everyone does, but I think I enjoy it more than most. Sadly, Uncle Gary, Aunt Janice, and Julie didn't have time to open their presents that morning and had to wait until we bounced.

Found this bear to take a picture of. I could use a good squeeze right about now.

Aunt Janice always has a stock pile of assorted teas. I forget what I had but it was good. One of those immune booster ones. I had it plain although I am a fan of honey.

Christmas Eve

Spent Christmas Eve at the Cousins'. I was told the festivities started at 8pm, so I left my mom's church a little before and arrived at 8:15pm. I was the first one there and people didn't start funneling in until what felt like 20 minutes later.

The Dan Household has two cats and a dog. Below is Buttons, I believe she is Bekah's favorite.

Julie and Rach for a pose.

The other cat is Clarence. He slept most of the time that night but he mosied around from person to person. Julie and him get along great.
I think Lydia came up with this while at Abby and Josh's. You turn off all the lights in the room while having the Christmas tree lit. You then lay under the tree and look up. Its suppose to look like a forest or something? Not sure, but it had to be fun if they continue to do it.

Clarence again.

Aunt Janice and Uncle Gary were kind enough to get me a gift. I've never seen it before. What you do is place this hat with a net on your head and you throw balls in it? I'll have to read the directions. This might have to be one of those games that requires alcohol consumption to enjoy.

Here is Lydia sportin' it as well.

Clarence!

Julie being mean to Clarence.

Had a pretty good time at the party. Turned out to be a late night as I had to drive Julie home, yawn.