Happy New Year!!

I know.. I know... you were wondering if I was ever coming back to write. I wondered if I'd have any time myself but it's New Years Eve and I have a moment before I need to nap before the party. Yep. party. My parent's friends have a party every year and invite about 50 people and we were invited. Probably a little odd that two mid-30s folks want to hang out at a party with mostly people in their 60s but they're a fun crowd. I'm looking forward to it.

It's been a busy two weeks or so. We drove down here from Washington with no problems. Stopping over to visit a friend on Christmas Eve Eve (that's the 23rd, don'tcha know?) and then down here to O-side on Christmas Eve. My mom made it a special one, making sure to get everyone gifts (we got a blender and a mixer for the new house!), which was more than we got each other, if you can believe it. We finally just had to say - you know, can we agree that we won't be buying gifts this year? i'm so tired of shopping! - and after that, we were able to relax a bit.

So, some evenings we've been playing games (this stopped for about 20 years when I was 'too cool' to play games, now it's fun again) and one of them is called 'Catch Phrase'. You get a word and have to try and get your partner to guess the word. I got partnered with my dad, whose from Chile and doesn't really know a lot of normal words, I guess, because I'd give this great clue and he'd just sit there until time ran out, when M and my mom (who were the other team) answered it easily. Needless to say, we got slaughtered. When my dad couldn't remember the word safari, (I gave him a good clue too) I knew our goose was cooked. But it was fun. I have to say that it was fun.

So, that's all for now. M's heading back to WA on Wednesday and I start a month of work here in LA, Oxnard and Orange counties. It's going to be brutal but when it's done, I only have a few short weeks of work remaining. So I can't complain.

I hope you all have a Happy New Year and I'll make sure I write in a bit more often and check in on your sites. Take care.