Hey everyone. So 2025 was kind of a crazy year. I lost my grandma (my last biological grandparent) and my grandpa-figure, and my in-laws dog. On a positive note, I went on a cruise, to Universal Studios, and Disneyland. I also saw some cool movies and won some stuff at our Oktoberfest celebration. I also paid off my mortgage in full, which is great to get that monkey off my back and not having to worry about having $900 in my account every month. I also managed to save $1686.46 by couponing and buying sales this year, so yay. If you want to see more, just scroll through past blogs. Now for some New Years festivities.
On the 29th I had a little Christmas visit with my aunt (this happened far enough after the Christmas blog after I posted it, so I'm putting it here). My parents were going to go with us, but they both got a little sick so they didn't join my brother, wife, and I. Here's the funny thing, we live south enough to where our weather can be different than my parents and even more my aunt; it wasn't snowing or all that cold at our condo, so I wore my crocks, but when I got up to my parents there was snow on the ground, and my aunt was not sure about us coming up because the weather was getting kind of bad (heavy snow). It made things kind of annoying, but it went OK. We loaded up our van with the albums mskate scanned in, the gift we were giving my aunt, and some food to have while we were visiting. The drive up wasn't that bad, just everyone driving 10 mph under the speed limit and having 20 feet visibility. When we got there we unloaded everything but the albums. We gave her her presents and she REALLY liked the photo frame. It took some time to get it connected to her wifi, but once it was on we spent like 20 minutes just watching the slide show, looking at the photos we uploaded and the photos mbear uploaded. Hopefully my other cousins upload some. That was the big gift from the entire family, but mskate and I also got her a little something, something we found when camping. It was a box of mason jars since she likes to can, and she really liked them since she likes to can. Kind of funny thing with the food, we couldn't find what my mom sent up with us, so we just had the cheesecake factory rolls and salami I brought up, and the from scratch garlic bread and soup my aunt made. Before we left we moved the albums to her garage, and we brought back soup for my parents. I gave them my rolls since those were really good with dipping in the soup.
The 30th wasn't super special, we just got a chuck e cheese year long pass and I went to the dentist where I used up the last of my FSA. New Years Eve is when things kind of picked up. We went up to our parents neighborhood to get my allergy shot and spend some time with the parents. I got my kroger coupons from my parents (because they mail to my parents and my account is so sold I'd have to go through a long process to move my address, I think I'll do it when I move though). We went to mskate's parents and did a little birthday celebration for her dad. We gave him a Donald Trump paint by stickers book, and he really liked it. We got some pizza for lunch, which was a good little lunch. Afterwards mskate and I went a chuck-e-cheese up by them. We played some games and got some prizes for mskate's easter egg fundraiser. Later in the evening we went to the New Year Vigil mass. Afterwards mskate and I went home and rung in the new year by ourselves (I invited mizorlover over but he was busy). I made a 500 piece pokemon puzzle in one evening. Normally a 500 piece puzzle will take a week, but because there were 38 characters it was like 38 small puzzles with 4-30 pieces each. I typically dump all the pieces in 1 half of the box, go through it trying to find like pieces (a character or edges), then go back through, again and again for at least10 times, but this time I only had to do it like 4 times. Fun. Around 11:30 I pulled mskate into the living room where we watched Dick Clark's Rocking New Years Eve since I've always used that, and then when the new year hit I lit off 4 fireworks. Those were a little hard since it was windy, but I got them lit and they flew off.
New Years day was kind of eventful. We did some after Christmas shopping (because there is still clearance sale stuff) and while out mskate ran into a family that goes to her catechism, and mailed out an ebay item, but the big thing was going to a hibachi restaurant by us. I've never done hibachi before but it definitely seemed like fun. "I've never done it before" is going to play in big. The chef put on his show, light the grill on fire with a heart, flip and spin his cooking utensils as the grill heats up, flip an egg into his hat and then pull out a toy chick, crack the eggs and make the fried rice, toss some vegitables into my mouth (I caught a piece of broccoli), spray sake in our mouths, do some fun flipping of the foods, and then do the onion volcano. So the sake thing was where "I don't know what I'm doing" came in. He kept spraying me and I just keep taking it, expecting him to stop "when I got the serving that's included with the price," but apparently I'm supposed to close my mouth when I'm done, so I just keep getting sake until it all spills out of my mouth. He thought that was kind of funny. Our meal was quite good, and I'll definitely go there again (dinner and a show). The main thing though is this is when I learned I'm allergic to shrimp. I've never had shrimp before (it's an expensive food and I don't particularly care for seafood, so I never felt like I was missing out on something), and I'd normally give it to mskate, but because he cooked it with gluten soy sauce or something she couldn't have, I decide to give them a try since I had them and didn't want them to go to waste. Shortly after eating though my upper lip started to swell and I was kind of dizzy, with a couple hot flashes. I look ups shellfish allergic reactions and yep I was having one. I had mskate drive me to the emergency room and they gave me an IV with antihistamines and steroids for the swelling. I then slept most of the observation period since they gave me benedril and it made me sleepy. Now I'm going to get an epipen, so when people ask me "what did you get for Christmas" I'll say "an epipen" before going into the real list.
The 2nd was pretty calm, only big thing was going to Chuck E Cheese and disassembling some omnipods using my new table vice. The 3rd was also kind of calm. We went to mass since mskate is traveling for skating nationals. We went out to dinner with her mom before setting them up in the 1 night hotel that is close to our house. The 4th was also pretty nothing. We apparently forgot to put in the donut order for coffee and donuts for church, but the ushers (who were in charge this week) found a work around. I went to the meat market and restocked the freezer, we basically ran out of meat in the deep freeze at the end of 2025, so I bought a bunch of steaks, pork chops, and stew meats, got them processed, and resupplied the freezer. I went to chuck e cheese and BJs to get some additional stuffs. I'm also keeping up on my new years resolution of "watch at least 30 minutes out of my DVR a day so I can get back down to the smaller cloud DVR on sling. Yay. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, Christmas time is here, time for joy and cheer. My last day of work was December 18th or something and then I was off until January 2nd. There were a lot of fun things that happened this year, and one of the fun things is that mskate worked for santa this year with my mom. I went to see her and my mom one day and it was fun seeing her. I also don't remember exactly when this happened, but at some point we went to see mskate's aunt who is now in assisted living for their holiday party. We got her a stuffed flag heart that is also an ornament. At the little party I sung Christmas song karaoke and did some songs in my goofy voice. That went over well with the residents. Mskate and I also went to see The Nutcracker as presented by the Royal Ballet and Orchestra at fathom events. Review experience here. We also did dinner with the accordion friends early in the vacation before the vacation where we gave them some small presents and one of the call blockers from my grandma's old house.
I think I should start things off with the Christmas party my mom has with her old college friends and their kids on like the 20th. All her friends had kids around the same time, so all of us are around the same age, and back in the day we'd all play together, great time. Now though, there's only like 3 of us that are still local; myself, my brother, and one of my mom's godsons. Still fun though, the godson has 2 kids, 7 and 5 years old, and they're really fun to play with. We played with the playmobile Christmas sets that my parent's have had since I was a kid that they still put out as part of their Christmas displays. Mskate and I also brought some happy meal toys for the kids that we got from our fast food meals (I try to not eat big meals when I go to fast food, which typically means kids meals with a toy that I'm not always collecting). The kids really liked the toys we got them, though a lot of it was probably just that it was a "new toy." The hospital by my parents does a community thing for the children that are hospitalized over Christmas, people come with flash lights and other lights and shine them at the windows (it's like 5th story 100 feet from the building, so it's not like people are sticking flashlights in the window and blinding the kids), and then they shine flashlights back at the people outside. Most of the time the police and fire department gets involved, bringing a car or truck to shine their lights since that's a fun thing for kids. Since my parents live 4 blocks from the hospital with a path to the hospital mskate, godson, his kids, and I walked there to shine the lights. Since mskate worked for santa she got a snowflake wand that we let the kids borrow for the event, along with the snowflake wand that my in-laws got when they went to see mskate. They really liked the wands, and I made sure to remind them that they were borrowing them so they wouldn't get too rough and accidentally break them (because they did get a little rough some of the time). We shined the lights but didn't stay the entire time because it was below freezing and snow everywhere and everyone was getting cold (I could have stayed a little longer, but everyone else didn't want to stay the entire time). Rest of the party was fun, but nothing else super worth discussing.
Not sure exactly when this happened, but I think it was between the college friend party and full festivities. We went up to my aunt's house and did some Christmas celebrating. It was the first Christmas without my grandpa, and was pretty hard on my aunt. Grandpa had lived with her for the last 7 years and died in October. It was a bit of a rough celebration, but we still had good dinner and some gift exchange. My aunt basically gave everyone some valuable-like things from my grandpa's condo (mainly super old ornaments). Then we were able to pick an animal wood carving from my grandpa since he was a master carpenter (maybe not "fully classified," but he was quite amazing). Mskate and I both chose the moose, and now he looks down on the front room from on top of one of our curio cabinets. Speaking of wood carvings, my grandpa would carve a Santa every year and instead of putting up a tree my aunt puts up a Santa village with little fake trees and cotton snow. Mskate and I made her 2 Santa ornaments to add to her village and she puts them up (not this year, but I think she just wanted to put up grandpa's this year). We gave her a banzai tree kit as a present this year and she really liked it (she gardens and this inside gardening kit is perfect for her). Hopefully there's a sprout next time we see her. It was originally going to be a present for my dad but then we had enough things for him and nothing for her, and afterwards mom told us that dad would like a kit as well (we ordered him one and had it shipped to his house).
Lets fast forward some days to the main Christmas festivities. Since mskate and I were in the same school district and met in highschool our parents are pretty close to each other, and since my in-laws have a "real guest room" while my parents have "a twin bed in the spare room," we stay with my in-laws for the Christmas festivities. We went to my in-law on December 23rd in the evening and unloaded all our gifts for everyone. Nothing super exciting this day, just packing up the car and organizing our gifts for who they go to and the different parties.
It is now Christmas Eve, the day we celebrate with my grandparents. This was a different than normal, since my grandma is no longer in her town house and is in memory care. Little backstory, this year my grandma moved out of her townhouse condo and moved into memory care since she can't live on her own anymore. We still did McDonald's lunch, and Mskate and I picked up the orders for everyone since I have the app and get points on orders. Little backstory on the tradition for the new readers, my grandparents lived 1 block away from McDonalds and on Christmas Eve we would go to McDonalds for lunch and then Santa would deliver presents to their house when we were out to lunch, and we continued the tradition up to when she moved out (and still do as I said). It was really good that we brought food because grandma wasn't eating her lunch at memory care since she didn't like it. We got her a happy meal and that was enough for her (she only ate about half of it actually). I got a mcrib since they have that again, and everyone else had different meals. It was a good time. After eating we did our gift exchange. We got grandma some noomio stuffed animals from our Disney adventures since she likes "her babies," one of her valentines day stuffed animals that somehow ended up in our gift stash, and some snack foods. She got me a crystal growing kit (because I want to see what happens if I let it sit for like a year), pokemon sun and moon DVD set, pretzel trail mix, a pin board for my pin collection, a lows gift card, krabby patty candy, and star bills. After all our gift exchanges we went to church at my grandma's home parish. She hasn't been there in a long time, and it was great for her to see everyone and everyone to see her. It was a little hectic getting her in the church (because she struggles with walking and sitting), but still good. After all this we went back to the in-laws and did a night before gift exchange. I got some lego sets and socks, and maybe some other things I'll explain in the tomorrow bit. I finished off the night by watching some of A Christmas Story on TBS (because I always watch A Christmas Story on TBS as part of their 24 hour marathon).
OK, it's Christmas day. We wake up and go out to the presents all spread out, everyone finding their presents spread around. IRA's favorite presents from this was the Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends DVD set we got him. Mskate really liked all the lulu lemon clothes and Disney animated movie DVD set she got (though it's region 2 since dad-in-law doesn't pay much attention to regions and he has a region free player). Delilah really liked the dog sweaters we got her, one a dragon costume and another a Christmas tree sweater. I got Pokemon megablocks both mini pokemon in balls (that I like to use to decorate my work desk), a dragonite, and pokedex, a magicarp nanoblock kit (a brick toy imported from Japan), a Tangled TV show DVD set, animal crossing lego sets, a Disney lego set, sonic shirt (specifically for the day after Christmas, you'll see why), a water ring game, and some candy. IRA also got a nanoblock kit (him blastoise), but he was having trouble building it so then I spent about an hour building it for him. Some time we had breakfast, and it was nice and relaxing because we didn't have to pick up mskate's aunt (the one in assisted living). It was a fun calm morning.
After the in-laws it was time for my parent's Christmas party. Mskate and I were like the last to arrive, meaning we didn't have to help get my grandma in the house. We started off just catching up with everyone. PepperBC and her mom where there which was great. I told them all about our Hawaii trip and they filled us in with how the cousins are doing. MMT may be getting proposed to before the end of the year, which means that my wedding streak is maybe still going. Our accordion friends also came, and we had a fun sing along with everyone. We sang all the Christmas songs, sleigh bells, let it snow, santa clause is coming to town, and so forth, and some Disney songs since mskate likes them and they're fun to sing. The accordion friends thanked us a lot for the call blocker since it blocks almost all of the annoying spam calls now. Cousin M joined us for dinner which was great, and dinner was pork tenderloin. It was a fun party with everyone. Getting grandma to and from the dinner table was something since she has trouble with the ups and downs. After the party was really difficult getting her out. We had to instruct her on how to get out of the chair and get into the wheel chair, and then when we got her out to the car how to turn around and sit down in the car. It was like a 30 minute ordeal. According to mom, when they got back to the assisted living facility the workers were able to get my grandma out of the car, in her room, and ready for bed before mom was even able to get the car parked and say goodnight. Professionals at work.
Now it's the day after Christmas, where we did a gift exchange with my parents and brother. My brother got a lot of different beers (because he likes beer), and a Coors Lite sign that I found. We game my mom a fancy silicon like pool noodle on season close out (normally like a $20 pool toy for only like $5), and lots of cotton candy (because she loves cotton candy). We got my dad some Peanuts Snoopy things since he loves that, a folding emergency shovel, gloves with flashlights in the fingers, a stripped screw removal kit, and some other things I'm forgetting. Mskate got lots of Disney gift cards. I got a Rokr globe lamp, rokr owl clock, a microwavable ramen bowl (because I like to have ramen when traveling), spongebob socks, elf goldfish, multi-connection charging cables (I call them "multi-taps"), a santa chocolate guy with a smashed penny, Fall Guy on 4K (great movie), a Power Puff Girls ornament, a chuck e cheese gift card, star bills, and silly putty. Later we had some left overs for lunch, great little time with the family. Later in the evening IRA and I went to Sonic 3. The movie was sold out (we got the last seats that were together) and someone was sitting in our seats, and that's because someone else was sitting in their seats, and so on like all the way down. Right before the movie the row basically did the wave of shifting down. Great movie, you can hear my thoughts here. Pretty calm night after that.
Following day we went home. I packed up all our gifts and travel things and we went back home. Once we got home I unpacked everything and began sorting where to put things. Some time during these days we went to different stores looking for after Christmas sales. We got some candy and chips, and some gift wrap and dog presents for next year. I also got my dogecoin migrated to my coinbase wallet. So fun story, back in college I liked to tinker with bitcoin and dogecoin because it was all new and I could get it from faucets and obvious ponzi schemes ("double your crypto in 100 hours," I'd deposit the minimum and 80% of the time would get in before it collapsed, making a decent amount). I used dogechain as my dogecoin wallet because it was an official cloud wallet and was easy to manage my crypto. I got an email from dogechain mid-November that they were going to fully shut-down and if your wallet wasn't migrated by December 31st your crypto would be lost for good. I missed my window to send the dogecoin through the wallet application but not to get the private key and back it up on a local wallet. I tried just putting it right into coinbase (since they now support dogecoin), but it wouldn't work so I installed dogecoin core on my old college laptop (because I wanted to use a computer that I wouldn't be worried about breaking), and it was running for like a month because it had to update the entire 14 year blockchain. Yeah... Whatever though, after a month of updating I was able to move my 220 doge to coinbase. If it wasn't a "substantial amount" (when I started it was worth about $140 and when I finished it was like $80) I would have just cut my losses, but I didn't want to lose out on that. Whatever.
Now for a little fun thing between Christmas and New Years. One of mskate's good childhood friends was in town and was having a 1 year old birthday party for her son. The funny thing is a lot of the friend's family lives out by us, but the party was at the friend's parents house an hour away from us. We went basically right after church. It was quite the drive, and rainy, and they live in the country nowhere with some dirt roads, meaning that our just cleaned car got dirty. Thankfully the rain washed off a lot of the wet dirt (it's the drying on that makes it stick). The party was pretty good. The baby really liked my hat, every time I was close he just stared at me. I asked his parents if it was my hat or beard and they said "probably the hat." I played galiga with some of the other party guests, and we visited with the people mskate knows. One of the party games was "guess the baby's month age in 12 different pictures." I only got one picture right, but I did better than my wife who got zero and follows the mom's instagram. Funny thing when it came time to sing the baby happy birthday and give him his muffin (no "baby crushes cake and makes a mess" scene here, he has allergies that prevents him from enjoying normal cake), he was more interested in the balloons than he was in the muffin. His parents kept trying to get him to eat the muffin but he just wanted to play with the balloons, and when the parents tried to take the balloons away from him he got sad and would cry. Pictures had to be taken between balloons. All went well, except for the lack of red meat sandwiches (it was all turkey and I don't like turkey), and the dog being territorial and not liking people (not violent, but very yappy and there's something about a dog's bark within like 6 feet of me that makes my right ear hurt). Otherwise it was a good little day.
2 days later it was now New Years Eve. Normally we have someone hosting a new years party but none this year. I got a promotional text from zapzone (a regional laser tag, arcade, and entertainment complex) that they were having a new years promotion, and we considered going to it, but on closer inspection it was a little too expensive for our preference decided just spent the night in. We did go driving around to Party City to get some things on sale since they're going out of business (got a helium tank for my mom since she loves balloons and some of those study plastic party cups that my in-laws like to use among some other things) and an upscale grocery store where we got some personal party supplies (spinach dip and chocolate moose). We watched The Emperor's New Groove together and I watched an IP Man movie and John Tucker Must Die on hulu before they expired. We also went to New Years Vagile mass since New Years is a holy day of obligation. I built one of my lego (mega block) sets from Christmas, the Pokedex. Mskate doesn't like to stay up late (and for that reason she kept asking "what are we even celebrating" and didn't really want to accept "it's just a reason to party"), so 10 minutes before midnight I called her into the living room and pulled up Dick Clark's Rock'n New Years Eve on ABC. Since I run our local channels through a networked over the air DVR that makes it's own server or something (along with digital not being "100% live" like analog was), the feed was like 30 seconds to 1 minute behind live so mskate was looking at her phone and saying "my phone is ahead." We counted down the minute countdown and kissed at midnight along with some sips of wine (I didn't have a small thing of bubbly wine and I didn't want to open a full bottle). Happy New Year. The Time Square ball is getting replaced after 17 years of use, and if my math is right that means that I saw the ball right when it was first used back when I went to New York back in highschool with the band.
New Years Day is just calm. One of the main things was we watched the Rose Bowl Parade. This was the first time I've watched it, and it was really neat, everything was made of roses. We also went to Meijer for a little more after Christmas shopping (we've been doing a lot of that recently). The main thing we needed to get was on sale sweatshirts that mskate and her dad could throw off to donate at the marathon they're doing next week, and an ornament box that was on sale. We got it and started taking some ornaments off, and it's going to work out well for us since it's all divided to individual holders. We also made one of mskate's lego, brick heads of inside out characters. I stuck them in the Lego Mario display, so now it's kaiju pixar characters in the mushroom kingdom. I also watched a lot of masked magician on youtube. It's also the return of Family Guy on Adult Swim. I tried watching some but then I remembered why I don't like Family Guy.
Now I need to go back to work. It was a really great vacation. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, time for my annual Christmas blog, and this year I'm throwing in New Years and Thanksgiving for a little extra fun. First I'll start with Thanksgiving, which was pretty basic. Mskate and I went to my parents and we had thanksgiving with the family, then we had desert and accordion playing. The next day IRA and I went black friday shopping, but the most interesting part of that was IRA woke mskate and I up at 4:30 saying "it's time for shopping it's time for shopping." Why, because everyone was empty, didn't have the same craziness as last year. When I went back to work there were people talking about how the news was all ready to interview people like they did last year but there wasn't anyone out. It was fun enough, we still bought a fair amount of things, but nothing to write home about. This is why I didn't do one this year; I'm sure I could have woven an entertaining story, but I just didn't feel inspired this year. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Mskate and decorated for Christmas, wrapped gifts, and I did a 12 days of Christmas puzzle advent calendar. It was quite fun and I framed it quite nicely where it'll make a good decoration in the years to come. Given how busy we were and how short Advent was this year Christmas came pretty fast. Because it went so fast we almost didn't do the county lights this year, but we did after work on like the 21st, and we did it with my grandma and mom. Since it's a drive through exhibit thing we wanted to take her to it for a year or 2 now, but kept forgetting. She really enjoyed it.
OK time for Christmas Eve. First I'll start with it being REALLY foggy around where everyone lives. This made things rater interesting. Mskate and I packed up our car with all the gifts we were giving away and overnight stuff for the 2 days we'll be staying at the in-law's house. The fog was kind of cool on the drive up, kind of like a Halloween atmosphere. We dropped off all the overnight stuff and divided the gifts between who we were giving them to (my grandma, her family, and my family). I did the dividing while she settled in with the overnight stuff. We also visited some with her family, and then went off to the McDonald's by my grandma's.
For those who might be new to the blog, when I was little and we do the gift exchange with my grandparents, we'd all go to the McDonald's that's a block away and then Santa would come while we're eating lunch. To this day we still go there because it's part of the tradition. Now for the silly fun time story of this. I have the McDonald's app which means I can get free food and discounts while also getting points for future free food and discounts so long as I log in. However, I don't know if it's my phone, how I use my phone (normally I have location and mobile data turned off, so connecting can take some extra time), or just the android app, but it regularly crashes or becomes unresponsive whenever I try to use it. IRA also wanted the Kerwin Frost adult happy meal toys, so we got 2 of those for the family members that wanted chicken. We also got my grandma a happy meal; mom said "is it just so you have the ebay inventory toy," and I said "no, it's that but it's also just enough food for her and it gets apple slices for mskate." I'm going through the app trying to maximize the savings while the family is saying "I'm hungry." I eventually get us saving quite a fair amount of money with the discounts. It ended up going really well, and VikingPolak was able to get a free McChicken with the points since he still needed some food after everyone was done. We also got some very interesting chicken nugget toys with the Kerwin Frost box.
With McDonald's eaten we went to her house and exchanged gifts. It was primarily everyone giving grandma gifts and her giving everyone else gifts. We got grandma a bunch of snack foods, a build a bear outfit, a cinderella doll to go with her micky and minnie doll, and some other things. She gave me Krabby Patty Fruit Snacks, Duckman the complete series, a pokemon puzzle, lemon cookies, Dragon Ball season 3, Perfect Blue on steel book, hazelnut wafer rolls, goldfish, highlander on 4K, young justice season 3, a yo-yo, burger king gift cards, a reindeer ornament, a spongebob magic towel, hot chocolate, a meat stick and cheese pack, and a wooden puzzle marble run. This is a high level model that is fragile with a lot of pieces, definitely not for kids. Mskate got hair clips, popcorn, 2 hairbrushes, a disney mystery box stuffed animal (it was pumba in the shape of a pretzel), socks, a Lizzie Maguire mug, fruit snacks, gluten free cookies, jelly beans, milk chocolate truffles, smoked guda spread, a glitter star tree topper, bath bombs, crayola hat, hair ties, harry potter fruit snacks, an Anna from frozen magic towel, hot chocolate, and peppermint peeps. All the while we had the Arendale Yule Log playing on the TV, it made for a nice festive. After all the gifts we made it to church. While on the way I got some great video of the flog.
Video is uploaded with creative commons attribution, click here for details (youtuberumble)
After mass we had dinner, pizza I think. We then said our goodbyes and went to mskate's parent's house. When we got back we did some additional gift exchanges, I got some pokemon mega blocks and a mcdondald's gift card I think. Mskate got a peanuts christmas display thing, some ornaments, and a starbucks gift card. We also gave Delilah some gifts, peanut butter filled cow hooves and jerky treats. We gave her one of the peanut butter cow hooves when they had to put Duke to sleep earlier this year, and she was happy to have more of them since she really likes peanut butter. The rest of the night was pretty calm, I watched A Christmas Story on TBS as part of my tradition, and made some jokes on twitter about how it was my tradition. Having watched the first airing in full I didn't have to drive my families crazy with "I have to watch A Christmas Story on TBS." What was great was I was able to shower during the commercial break and miss nothing. Yay.
OK it's now Christmas morning. IRA is super excited (bragging about how he only slept for 2 hours). Before I get to the fun stuff, I need to explain/remind a thing about my father-in-law. He's notoriously hard to shop for, either thinking that what you got him is too low of quality or thinking that you spent way to much on something. I have cracked him though, what he needs are household items he doesn't yet have and doesn't realize he wants. We ended up getting him washing machine cleaner, gaffers tape, 3 different bird feeder feeds, pet stain cleaner, and a novelty sign that says "forget about the past you can't change it, forget about the future you can't know it, forget about the present because I didn't get you one" (we had him open that last). He liked all of them. For Delilah her final present from us were pawstruck dog bone treats. She REALLY liked those. They were a little big for her but she loved jumping on it and biting it and breaking off crumbs she later licked up. I think I won Christmas for the dog (at least for now, more on that later). From them I got more pokemon mega blocks (specifically the pokeballs that make for great desk decorations, IRA had them stacked together since they link together on the top), a pikachu children's model (I think I'll do a "model review" where I give Crash a friend), pokemon puzzles, a tin of breakfast blend tea, a buckees shirt, a Naruto mug with Naruto socks, a new polo work shirt, a Naruto shirt, more McDonald's gift cards, a lego parrot, gum, life savers candy, a stuffed snorlax, and a stuffed dragonite. IRA picked out the Naruto stuff because when we went to Disney I had ramen twice, and he associates ramen with Naruto and not "I can make my own food/broke college student." Oh well, I like Naruto even though I haven't watched it in a long while. Mskate also gave me some things here. She gave me a gourmet cookie that she bought from someone at church and a hot sauce variety pack. I gave her her presents from me the day after with my parents. She got peeps, Harry Potter legos, a calendar, stationary, a saint a day book, a harry potter shirt, a harry potter mini backpack purse thing (similar to loungefly but not that brand), cheese knives, American Girl Doll accessories, a starbucks gift card, jelly beans, a phone protector, high quality markers for art things, candy canes, a stuffed Harry Potter and Hermione, a stuffed Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, and stuffed santas. We gave IRA various nightmare before christmas things and volume 1 of invincible. It was a great day. I don't remember what we got mom-in-law, but they were things she liked. There's also this funny chocolates we got. It's a company that makes Easter chocolates and they did Santa and his reindeer, but I swear the reindeer were just the bunny mold with antlers on the ears in the foil.
Now with gifts over we went to get mskate's aunt from 2 blocks away. When we got her in we gave her her little gifts from us (rice krispy treats). She really liked them. We had breakfast and all went well. Now for some of the Delilah story, she was going absolutely crazy with the bone thing, running around everywhere, digging in her dog bed, and general hyperactivity. After breakfast aunt's daughter picked her up and went to their next activity. She also brought over her dog Edison, a big dog that they gave some big rawhide treats to that were too big for Delilah. The dogs ran around together and had a lot of fun. I don't know if they knew each other before this, but they enjoyed each other it seems like. We rested for a few hours before going to my parents. I watched A Christmas Story on TNT during this time (because TNT aired it on the odd hours and was a different channel). It was fun.
It's now about 2PM, time for my parents party. We got there before everyone else, and then mom and grandma got there. We helped grandma into the house and got her seated. After Mrs. G joined us we did coloring cookies; one Easter we got my grandma these coloring book cookies with edible markers and we found it's a food and activity my grandma really likes (it's the only thing she eats really quickly). We got her the cookies on Christmas Eve and we did them on Christmas day, with some extras for her to do at a later time. We were going to use the different markers from other times but we lost them. Oh well, we'll get them another time since this is going to be a thing we do with her for a while. After the cookies we did oplatke, a Polish tradition. Mskate and I got the oplatke from our church since ours does it, and it was fun. We did it at our little gathering and dad and vikingpolak did it with our grandpa and aunt. It was a fun little time.
Now for the other part of the party, where my dad and brother came back from aunt and grantpa's. Normally grandma's long time friends with the accordion come over but they had to stay healthy due to an upcoming surgery. Oh well, we still managed to enjoy ourselves, just a lot of talking. We had dinner ham, rolls, corn, green beans, and sweet potatoes. Mom didn't serve the ham on a very good plate, it was pretty shallow resulting in me spilling the juice on myself. It was a good dinner. After dinner we had desert with IRA and mom-in-law joining us. Grandma gave IRA a minions magic towel, and he made his when he got it. Since he's a bit of a doof he activated his towel by soaking it in water, and then bringing it out sopping wet to show everyone. I cleaned up the water he was dripping everywhere. Mom-in-law also brought over a dancing snoopy toy that she got for Christmas to entertain grandma, and I showed her a dance she could do to dance along (hold her arms up in front of herself and do windshield wipers). It was a fun time. When we were done we got grandma all packed up to go home, and went back to the in-laws. Delilah was still very excited, and dad-in-law figured there was something in the new bone that was making her all crazy. Apparently she didn't sleep much that night.
Now it's the day after Christmas, Boxing Day if you're Canadian (which I'm not). Mskate's dad got fed up with the paw struck treats so he threw them out. Delilah was looking around sad that she lost her treat toy. I later dug them out to give to Edison since his dog-mom causes a lot of trouble, so causing her some trouble wouldn't be that bad (he got pretty excited as well, but he just liked the new toy thing). We went to my parent's house and set-up the gifts. We gave my dad a lot of peanuts stuff (peanuts hot chocolate, the Charlie Brown and Snoopy show complete series, 4 TV movie set, and a pop-up card with the Christmas special scene where Linus says what Christmas is all about), and some cooking things I think. We got my mom brownie mix (she really likes to make brownies), bath and bodyworks soaps and lotions, gift cards, and some other things. We got my brother a flash light, shirts, an amo box, beard wash and conditioner (that we got from bed bath and beyond in the bankruptcy sale), and some other things. I got this peanut butter cup and chocolate trailmix insert mix (really good), a game called "nice buns," a squishy stress ball thing, a spongebob puzzle, spiderman across the spiderverse, a slinky, Crash 4 it's about time, pickles, sunflower seed kernels, katamari, spongebob socks, a ruby tuesdays gift card, a taco bell gift card, uber gift card, slide wistle, and a rubix cube key chain. Mskate got dominos, gluten free cookies, an american girl doll play set (a truly me doll she's naming Noel), bath bombs, lotion, and a warming unicorn. Mskate and I got matching Disney shirts, so we know what we'll wear next trip. We also got Disney 100 happy meal toys, a collection process we worked on when it was in restaurants and we are only missing 3. This is also when I gave her my gifts, The Aristocats on Bluray with the Disney 100 slip case with Marie on it (she loves Marie), and Miracle on 34th street. After all the gift giving and breakfast cinnamon rolls and bagels we watched an episode of the Charlie Brown and Snoopy show. It was REALLY funny, I picked a winner. After that we gathered up our stuff from both houses, and went home. For the next many days I was just working on finding places to keep all our new gifts. One thing I need to do is find a place in the curio cabinet for the happy meal toys that are basically just figures.
The days between Christmas and New Years were pretty chill. For the most part I organized our new presents and rested. 2 days before New Years Eve we went up to mskate's parent's house so she and dad-in-law could see The Polar Express in IMAX for his birthday, and IRA and I went to see The Boy and the Herron, the movie the Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement for, reopening Studio Ghibli just to make (though basically that just meant that the people that made Studio Ponok went back to the old offices since they made their own studio after Ghibli closed). It was a really good movie, even though it had a lot of "Ghibli old lady face" and "Ghibli fluids," along with some "Ghibli frog face" if I'm not mistaken (3 elements of Ghibli movies I don't care for). I'll be making a review at some point. Since the theater we went to was close to where Cousin M lives IRA and I stopped by after the movie for an impromptu visit. We talked for maybe an hour just catching up, which was great since we didn't see him at Christmas. Then the day before New Years Eve we had a funeral for one of the scout moms from my old Boy Scout troop. It was sad but it was great seeing so many people I haven't seen in over a decade. Since she was so involved in the troop (regularly being an adult leader on camp outs and driving us up in her 15 passenger van (the memory I shared in facebook that made the sons smile, and I shared in the "write down a memory"). So many people from my old troop came, so many people I remembered but didn't recognize (I said "who am I not recognizing" but when he said his name I would remember instantly). After the funeral the luncheon was held at the VFW post that we would regularly partner with for blood drives with or hold banquets at. One of the VFW men recognized me from 12+ years ago, which was so cool. It was just a regular troop reunion, and the good thing is since mskate and I grew up in the same area she knew a number of people and wasn't "I don't know anyone, stick with me and don't socialize to the full extent with your old friends" like I imagine many spouses would be in situations like this. About halfway through before one of the sons had to leave we took a picture with all the old scouts that were there including the old scout masters. Just a great little thing.
Now it's New Years Eve, I had some ebay packages to mail so I went to Meijer for the authorized USPS shipping location. While there I did some shopping and used some coupons while also buying on sale Christmas stuff (primarily chocolates, but also a dog sweater for Delilah next Christmas). I basically got everything for 50% off, yay. Then after my shopping I went to Wendy's and got one more free Jr. Frosty (got mskate a small vanilla diet coke and I had the frosty). Then it was time to go to our camping friend's New Years Eve party. Our contribution to the party was a meat and cheese tray, plate of cookies, champagne, fireworks, and board games. The food went over very well, and the champagne was great for the New Years toast. The game we brought was the Nice Buns game my mom got me for Christmas, and it was a really fun game. The goal is to get 3 sets of 3 cards of the same color (9 total) before your opponents, while also avoiding the "fishy buns" which prevent you from making a set, while rolling dice that determine how many new cards you can get and if you can get rid of your fishy bun if you have it, and while there's a lot of chance with the drawing of cards and rolling of dice there's also a lot of skill with how the players play the dice and cards. We had one game that went on for about an hour because we got really into strategy of how to play the dice and cards, and played it 2 or so other times. It's a really fun game and will be bringing it camping. Since my godfather and his family weren't going to be there for the ball drop I lit off some of my fireworks for my godbrother around 10PM (the others would be done at midnight). He's still young and doesn't have the "backyard shows," so he was yelling "you need to call the fire department, I've never seen up close fireworks." My godfather was a little nervous about this since he's been to some irresponsible backyard shows, but he also knew I was responsible and safe. I lit off 3 in the drive way while he and my mom stood at a far distance, and he thought they were really cool. I'm sure there's going to be some "can we do fireworks like [Pokematic] did" and there's going to be things like "no, that's a thing only specially trained people like Mr. [Pokematic] are able to do on New Years and the 4th of July." Mom also took a photo of me with the firework and said "you're just like [you're uncle who would light off the fireworks when we did 4th of July parties 20 years ago]." We all just hung out until about 10 minutes to midnight, and then we started getting ready for the ball drop. I popped the cork on the champagne into the back yard and poured as many glasses as the hosts had, and everyone that wanted some got it. I also jokingly told the hosts "send one of your kids to find the cork in the morning." We counted down the ball and toasted the drinks. I lit off the remaining 6 or so fireworks for an audience of about 5 people. The fun thing is I bought this kit and box of tanks about 7 years ago and have been gradually lighting them off 1-4 at a time over new years and 4th of July at my house, and with this it's now about done (still have some small ones and tanks left, but "the show pieces" are all done now). Now it's time for me to get a new kit since everyone really liked them (and hopefully I can get some on sale now that new years is over). Shortly after the fireworks it was time to go home.
So there you have it, my Christmas and New Years 2023 extravaganza (with a hint of Thanksgiving and Advent). It was quite a great time. It was also quite an eventful 2023 (which I'll recap in another blog). New Years day is the last day of my break (which went very quickly), and will be populated with various "get ready for the work week" stuff (and maybe some sales to get more fireworks). This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Oh and here's Steamboat Willie, hosted by me on this blog (not linked). I can do so because it is now 2024 and Steamboat Willie is now public domain.
Hey everyone, during all the Christmas fun mskate mom-in-law and I decided we would go to New Mexico to see her aunt that's on hospice over the New Year holiday. It wasn't going to be an easy trip for them, but it would be important since she doesn't seem to have much time left and the rest of the family was figuring out when to see her as well. Plus, this would be my only time to meet her and would basically be the only time I could see her, so it was pretty perfect. I took this as an opportunity to try out my new fire stick and luna controller (I basically bought it so I could have my streaming when traveling and so I could play my twitch prime luna games, and this was a great time to try it out). We basically spent the week between Christmas and New Years prepping for this trip, and while that was kind of stressful and ate all my time (I wanted to finish a bunch of blogs and videos, but that didn't pan out, though I did get my book published digitally, so win), it all worked out. Mom-in-law stayed with us the night before the trip so we could get to the airport easy.
It's now New Years Eve and we're getting ready to travel. Our bags were all packed and we loaded everything in the jeep. This time when we got to the airport we made sure to park in the cheaper long term parking structure (because when we went to Texas we parked in the twice as expensive short term parking structure). The craziness starts here because it was way hard finding a parking spot; we drove around 3 levels and just narrowly found a spot at the 4th level, and the navigations was confusing so that made things all the harder. TSA wasn't too difficult, but there was a problem with the TSA cares thing mskate applied to so she wouldn't have problems with her diabetes pump (they didn't know what it was so we had to go through normal security). After that we got to our terminal no problem, and just waited for the plane.
The plane ride was kind of interesting. Normally we fly Delta, but American was much cheaper so this was the first time flying that airline. The last times when I flew Delta the airplane had a screen in the chair in front of you to watch movies and TV shows, and the built-in nature made it pretty convenient and easy to use (just plug in headphones and select your entertainment on the screen). American was kind of different, since it was basically the exact same service (free movies and TV shows), but it required connecting to the in-flight wifi hotspot and going to the free section (not pay for in-flight wifi) in a web browser. The interesting thing is the plane seatbacks were then build with smart device holders. I was just a little fascinated by it. I ended up watching A Charlie Brown Christmas since I haven't watched it yet this year and then the apple tv plus episodes of Peanuts. The episodes were good, but definitely not worth apple having it's own streaming service. Next is where things got bad. After the Peanuts I found a 2020 version of Saved By The Bell, apparently a Peacock original. I wouldn't say I'm a "giant fan" of Saved By The Bell '89, but I enjoyed watching it in middle and highschool in the summer on TBS, and watched all 4 seasons, the college years, and the TV movies on hulu in like 2017, enjoyed the unauthorized story on lifetime that covered Duston's story, and enjoyed the people reunion article from 2009, so I'm definitely "a fan." I just like the cheesy sitcom format of characters getting into simple problems and everything gets solved at the end of the episode, it's just fun. So when I saw there was a 2020 reboot I was curious, and then when I saw it had the old cast reprising their roles as adults with us following their kids I was excited (because that worked so well with Girl Meets World). After 2 episodes I found myself incredibly disappointed. This wasn't a reboot, this was a cynical commentary-satire of the original series and it's fantasy elements, with the Zack Morris stand-in (Zack's son Mack) and a Jessie stand-in basically getting called out for their priviliage constantly while the inner-city kids struggle to keep up, it just wasn't entertaining. I'll probably go into deeper detail with a full review later, but this truly sucked and I do not recommend it. Like, there's a plot point about how expensive it is to hang out at a sit-down restaurant after school every day, and how unrealistic it is for kids to afford that. Uh yeah, it's escapism entertainment, that's why I like the original show. I don't remember what else I watched on the flight, but it was better than that. I also played Animal Crossing as I worked on catching up to reality.
After the plane ride we got to our layover in Dallas. This was kind of interesting since it's a really large airport, so large that we needed to take a people mover to get from our arrival terminal to the departure terminal. Before we took the people mover though I went to the candy store in the terminal we arrived at and got a Spongebob Finder's Keeper's egg with Sandy as the prize (I'm currently working on a full collection, and have a list of product codes with the corresponding toy, and one day will hopefully get enough to make an article on how to tell the boxes apart, but for now you can enjoy this food review). When we got to our terminal mskate and mom-in-law got Panera Bread while I got McDonald's. I was going to get points with the app but unfortunately my phone died so I wasn't able to get my points. Oh well. Something cool that happened was someone gave mom-in-law a food voucher which saved us $12 on their order (but they had some trouble entering it so I had to do it for them). We ate our lunch and then waited for our plane.
The flight from Dallas to Albuquerque was generally uneventful. I decided to check the movie section and finished Minions Rise of Gru, and some other movie that I don't remember. The thing that was more memorable is I think the cabin lost some air pressure because I was getting altitude sickness and mskate's diabetes pump had an altitude alarm. That was uncomfortable, but I still made it through. One thing I did while on the plane was take some stock footage of take off and window views. I plan on releasing some as creative commons.
When we got to Albuquerque things were pretty calm. The airport had a lookout point and we made the note that we had to check it out on the way back. We also stopped at one of the gift shops to look around and they had something like chili lemon pistachios (or something else that was a unique flavor and sounded really good). I almost picked them up to try it out and would normally pay like $7 for the bag but would be willing to pay $3 airport markup (I want to say my spongebob surprise egg was like $1-2 more expensive than normal), but the bag was a whopping $16, no thank-you. Leaving the secure terminal was also pretty nifty. At most airports I've been to one takes an escalator down to a level and it's all 1-way traffic, but this had like an airlock system where one walks into a room to where there is a door gate style, and the gate style doesn't open until the back door is fully closed, and then the exit door doesn't open until the gate style is fully closed.
Now the fun begins, because we had a 1 hour drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, which meant a pretty large uber fair. We ordered it no problem and just waited at the ride share pickup location, and I ate snacks to hold me over until we got to the hotel. I packed a decent amount of snacks with a wide variety to make sure we had food for everyone when we needed it, and that was good because I needed some. Mskate was worried that I wasn't wearing my coat while we waited outside for the uber (despite being in the desert, it got kind of cold in the winter), but it was only like 50 degrees which when I have my warm winter blood for 20 degrees and below, 50 is cool t-shirt weather (which is what I happened to be wearing). The ride there was pretty neat, I got a lot of video of the mountains and roads, and our driver drove Dean Norris of Breaking Bad fame (Hank). His story was "I picked him up and he's wearing these large sun glasses and I said 'do I know you' and he said 'no I have a very familiar face, you're confusing me with someone else' and I said 'no, you're Hank,' and he said 'dang-it, you Albuquerqueans always find us Breaking Bad guys.'" That's pretty neat. Since mskate had the problem with her insulin pump we had to find a pharmacy to get syringes. Our driver stopped at a Walgreens that was kind of on the way and let us get some. We gave him a really big tip for how accommodating he was.
Checking into the hotel wasn't too difficult. I had the confirmation printed off just in case but all they needed was my ID. When we got to our hotel room I pulled all of the extra snacks that were packed in the clothes suit cases and put them on the desk for getting to. I also set-up the firestick and got set-up with that. The cool thing about the wifi is since it was a Drury Inn my phone recognized it from other Drury Inns so I didn't even have to add the network. That was pretty neat. Dinner was soon after unpacking and it was pork sliders and baked potatoes, and it was really good. I also had a vodka cranberry sour with my dinner. Best part, Drury Inns have free dinner and drinks. The cost might be a little higher than other hotels, or the room quality might be lower quality than other hotels for a similar price (the place mskate and I go to in Columbus is about the same price or cheaper than Drury Inns with higher quality rooms), but a continental breakfast, continental dinner, 3 free drinks a night, and unlimited fountain drinks and popcorn any time is a great value.
OK, now it's time for us to see Aunt P. We chose this specific hotel because it was within walking distance to her house (I want to say 4-5 blocks away), and even though it was getting dark we walked over to her house. I was pretty interested with all the adobe architecture, but I couldn't really take it in because I had to be very aware of my surroundings. In general Santa Fe seems to be a pretty safe city (with stories I'll get to later), but even then there wasn't a lot of street lights where we were (using our phone flashlights) and there were a fair amount of dark corners a mugger could hide in. I lead the way while carrying the semi-heavy bag that could be used as a weapon if needed (nothing to incapacitate someone, but enough to break their focus). Thankfully it didn't have to come to that, but there was still risks due to ice resulting in us taking an uber on the way back (but I'm getting ahead of myself). Getting there on the Saturday we did was really good because Aunt P was having a good day and was pretty animated. Mskate talks about her a lot so it was great to finally meet her in person, along with the care taker that is the favorite. Even though it was a good day for her, it was pretty late, so we only stayed for about an hour before she said "not to poo-poo you, but it's getting late and I want to go to bed." We said our goodbyes and when I gave her a little hug I also shook her hand, and Aunt P didn't want to let go of my hand. I asked if she liked my hand and she said yes, and I said "thank-you I've been moisturizing," the first of many silly exchanges between the two of us. Our Uber back to the hotel was in a Tesla, and we were all pretty impressed with it. We had some trouble opening the doors because you have to press on the handle to get the handle ready to open, and then it can be pulled to open, and I don't remember the door open from the inside but the ladies had some trouble getting out of the back so I had to open the door for them when we got back.
One detail that was a little "overlooked" I guess you could say, is it was New Years Eve, and I pretty much always stay up for New Years even if it's just me. The kind of challenge though was the 2 hour time difference on top of the traveling with a 1 room hotel room (no sitting area like last year), so I basically had to keep it down as I wrung in the new year. I watched Animaniacs on my phone for some hours while everyone else went to bed, and I intended to just stay up to watch the east coast NYC ball drop (because I live in eastern standard time and that's my normal new years count down and ball drop), but I ended up falling asleep at about 9:30 PM local time-11:30 PM normal time and missed the NYC count down, but I ended up waking up at about 10:55 PM local time-12:55 AM normal time so I pulled up Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve and watched the Puerto Rico ball drop (at least I think it was Puerto Rico, as I do the math while researching this blog they're actually 1 hour ahead of eastern standard time and normally the central time countdown is out of New Orleans, but whatever). Either way I had fun.
Sleep through the night to New Years Day Sunday. I wanted to keep on my normal sleep schedule so I woke up at like 6AM local time 8AM my time, and after an hour of hanging in the room it was breakfast time; a simple continental breakfast with pancakes and hash browned potatoes. 9AM though is when things got really cool. The St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral Basilica is like literally next door to the hotel (there's some court yard area, but nothing significant between hotel property and church property), so we got to go to mass there. It is a really big and pretty basilica, with a lot of stained glass and murals, but it doesn't end there. Since there is a large Hispanic population all of the hymns were half English half Spanish, and the old testament reading was in Spanish with the English translation available with the hymns. Oh but it gets better. I don't know if this was his home parish or he was just there for the weekend, but the bishop lead mass while we were there, and since that happens about every 2 years or less at my home parish that was pretty cool; and if it ended there that would be enough but it just keeps coming. At this particular mass they were honoring 2 police officers that died in the line of duty, so there were a lot of police officers in dress uniforms and what I believe was a "police march snare drum beat" during the opening hymn (maybe that's just how they do it at this parish, but it had that "honoring a serviceman" sound). Oh but that's not all, to top it all off the incumbent New Mexico governor was at the mass as well because it was inauguration day, and she and her husband brought up the gifts and after mass received a blessing from the bishop in front of the basilica with a lot of media attention. It was quite ordeal. Mom-in-law said she saw people with ear pieces, meaning that her secret service security detail was there. Talk about cool. After mass we went back to the hotel and just rested for an hour or 2 before we went to see Aunt P.
Now that it was day time I was able to enjoy the walk over much more. There was a lot of cool Adobe and some interesting architecture.
Today was a lesser day for Aunt P. We planned on staying most of the day with a lot of non-visiting time so I had my switch and phone ready for wait around time, and I'm glad I did because I think about half of the time we were there Aunt P was napping (not in a row, but on and off she would just nod off). One of the funny things is she zoned out a lot and the caregiver was saying she was going to her own world. Here's a fun interaction from this.
Caregiver: [P], are you in your own world right now?
Aunt P: yeahh...
Pokematic: can I join you?
Aunt P: nooo.....
Just a funny little thing that happened. We had pizza together for lunch and that was good, and later mskate and I went to Kakawa a specialty chocolate and ice cream shop to get Aunt P a milkshake and us some specialty treats, but unfortunately they were closed, so we saved that for the next day. In addition to us one of Aunt P's friends that also lives in Santa Fe joined us for visiting, which was nice since I heard about her a lot as well, and that helped break up the time while we visited with Aunt P the whole day.
When it was time to go the friend gave us a ride back to the hotel and hung out with mom-in-law for about 2 hours while they caught up, and mskate joined them for some of the time, but since I had multiple degrees of separation on this I just hung out in the room until dinner (which was about 2 hours from when we arrived back to the hotel). Now as we were driving back to the hotel there was a sign that caught my attention, but you'll just have to wait until that part of the story. For now I'm going to tell you about Drury Inn dinner on Sunday night. I want to say it was some kind of chicken, and since I don't like chicken I had the hotdog. Now it just so happened that the soup of the day was chili, so I ended up having myself a chili dog and baked potato for dinner in addition to a whisky sour.
After dinner mskate and I went a few blocks down from the hotel to downtown Santa Fe. For the most part we just walked around the various shopping areas and enjoyed the Christmas lights that were still up in the city square. It was really quite nice. We went into some mini-malls and "shopping arcades" (the Santa Fe arcade, with no coin-ops), and even though a lot of things were closed it was still fun. What gave me quite a laugh was going into the five and dime. I don't think this was a "traditional five and dime" since there was a lot of touristy items and souvenirs, and no one was wearing raspberry berets (and I didn't feel like giving the cashier a hard time by asking if he worked for Mr. McGee since I'm sure he hears that joke multiple times a day and I wasn't buying anything), but it was still fun. One thing mskate and I enjoyed doing when we were dating was walking around city areas and it's fun to still do that now that we're married.
Now it's Monday and after eating hotel breakfast mskate wanted to go to a local restaurant to get some breakfast food she could eat (food allergies). It was a little Mexican cafe 1 block from the hotel and she got breakfast tacos. Now because I live in the north and most of my experience with Mexican food is Taco Bell (blasphemy, I know), my perception of a "breakfast taco" (along with other "breakfast versions of lunch and dinner foods") is "a normal taco with scrambled eggs in it." Since eggs are one of her allergies she asked for them on the side (I ate them) and I expected a "pretty standard taco" after that. To my surprise it wasn't that, it had hash browns, sausage chunks, and bacon pieces, and not a whole lot of other "traditional taco ingredients." That was pretty neat. After breakfast we walked around some of the shopping that was closed the previous night, and as we were walking we found a place that had free dog treats, so we picked one up for the dog of the caretaker that would be taking care of Aunt P today.
Today was going to be our last day visiting with Aunt P, and it was pretty fun. Today for lunch we had Chinese food, and I had sesame beef which was pretty good. After lunch mskate and I went to the chocolate store again this time knowing they would be open. This was quite a cool place. First, they had all sorts of fancy and exotic chocolates, many of which were allergy free. Mskate said "I'm going to limit myself to 3 things, and I want 2 of the peppermint patties, and I can't chose between the truffle and raspberry filling." I suggested just getting one of each and that ended up being the right decision. Since it was expensive I wanted to get something I couldn't get anywhere else (sure, it won't be Kakawa quality, but I can get peanut butter cups and chocolate covered cherries anywhere); this is why I chose the Aztec chocolate chili ice cream. I knew about Aztec chili chocolate from The Polar Express and other sources and it seemed intriguing, but in my half a dozen or so adventures to border states this was the only place I've seen that had Aztec chili chocolate, and for it to be in ice cream (a food that is a "spicy food antidote") I was even more interested. And of course, we got Aunt P her milkshake since that was our primary reason for going there. It was quite a busy place, where I think we spent somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes just waiting for our milkshake and ice cream.
When we got back I sampled some of my ice cream and wow was that an amazing flavor. The Aztecs were definitely onto something when they put chili in the chocolate. For the most part it tasted like a rich chocolate ice cream and would be another "it's high quality but I can get this anywhere," but the heat added by the chili was a very unique addition that didn't change the flavor at all (like, it wasn't "chocolate and hot sauce," it was "chocolate, that was spicy"). It like, woke up my taste buds to bring more of the chocolate flavor in. Add on top of this that my mouth was very confused because it felt like it was hot due to the chili but was actually cold due to the ice cream. If you're ever in Santa Fe and enjoy spicy foods some, I highly recommend getting the Aztec chocolate ice cream from Kakawa chocolate, because it is an experience like nothing else I've had.
Aunt P really enjoyed her milkshake, and this is when this day's funny Aunt P interaction happened. She drank about 1/4 of it and then kind of "lost the straw" as mskate was holding it for her. After not going for the straw for a minute or so I said "I think she might be done," and then she gave me a look of "the hell I am" and started drinking again and had about half of the milkshake before putting it in the freezer. We visited for about another hour and then said our final goodbyes. I said "it was good meeting you Aunt [P]" and she said "it was good to meet you too," and that made mskate and mom-in-law quite happy since that was like the largest sentence she said the entire trip.
We went back to the hotel and rested a little bit, and this is when I had one of the coolest things happen on the trip. Remember that sign I mentioned some paragraphs back? The sign said "video library," and I was very curious to see what that was, and since it was just a block away from the hotel I decided to find out. It was kind of in the back of a tiny strip mall, out of view of the main road in a kind of unassuming store front (I think it just had a sign that said "video library" in basic font, and nothing in the windows), but some times that is a sign of something really special, and this was no exception. It turns out this is a 41 year old video rental store, the oldest in the United States and 2nd oldest in the world (the oldest being a German store that is like 3 months older). This place was SO COOL! And when it says "library," oh it means it. Most video stores have the cover of the movie facing you to try to get your attention and make it easy to see the movie you're looking for (or in my case when I would go to my local video stores, the movie I didn't know I was looking for). They have them on a shelf with the spine facing you to maximize the amount of DVDs they can have on the shelf similar to a library, and this place easily had thousands of DVDs on the shelves typically with only 1-4 copies of a movie that wasn't super popular like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Hitchcock, so there had to be at least 1000 different movies on the shelves. They also had "check-out slips and return date stickers" like one would find in a library book, just adding to the whole "library aesthetic." I didn't rent anything because I had no way of playing them, but I did buy a T-shirt because I had to support this business. Then the thing that was super amazing was I asked the owner if she would give me a small interview for my vlog and she said yes. She told me about the history of the store and how she has all sorts of media, and off camera she said she I wasn't the first person to ask her since there was someone that was making a documentary on video stores that were still open long after many were gone. And then she gave me some stickers for the store which was really awesome of her probably because she could tell I was into it (and probably because I bought a t-shirt). If anyone is in Santa Fe, you need to check out The Video Library.
Dinner was pretty low-key. Mskate ordered a Frito salad from one of the restaurants in town since she couldn't eat whatever the hotel was serving, so we went there together and while we were waiting for our food we found the t-shirt store she went to last time she was there and got me a Santa Fe shirt. Hotel dinner was nothing super special, I want to say they had chicken so I ended up eating a hotdog again. Mom-in-law and I both got double drinks (her a wine, me another cranberry vodka sour) to help us fall asleep in prep for the early morning, and that was basically it. It just so happened that there was a Barbra Walter's special that the ladies wanted to watch on hulu, so I set it up for them on the firestick and got a lot of praise for bringing it (because before it was just me watching cartoons on it). I have a feeling the firestick is going to be a staple travel item in the future. After the special we got everything packed up and ready for the trip home.
Tuesday morning had to be the most crazy part of the trip. Packing up and checking out wasn't a problem, but the Uber was. Despite reserving the ride 12 hours in advance and having multiple confirmations, the driver canceled on us leaving us kind of stranded. We didn't have a back-up plan since we haven't had problems with uber in the past, but that wasn't a great thing. I was the calm one in the situation so I asked the hotel staff if they had any suggestions. One of the valet guys said "I got you, call Rob he's very reliable, he has 6 or 7 guys and if they won't drive you he'll do it" as he handed us a business card. Within 15 minutes Rob picked us up and we called him "Rob to the Rescue," and he said he liked it so much he might start using that since he gets a lot of business from Uber and Lyft sucking. (his business is independent from major ride sharing and taxi services). If you haven't noticed, I normally don't like referring to people by their real names in my blogs unless they're a public figure like Tommy Wiseau, but his company doesn't have "a brand name," it's just "Rob," so ask your hotel for Rob if you need a ride when you're in the area because he's good. He also had some cool stories, like giving Dwite from The Office and Danny Trejo a ride once in addition to some singers I didn't recognize. I want to say he was a little more expensive than Uber, but the reliability was definitely worth it.
Going through TSA was pretty easy this time. We had the information for TSA cares and this time they actually knew what it was. We had a TSA officer specifically assigned to us, and she took us through an xray machine that was just for us and it was really nice. Mom-in-law forgot a water bottle in her bag so that got flagged and made things annoying. I also had my pocket bunched up from emptying it into the bin, and had to get patted down. It was cool being able to explore the airport some, like sitting in the observation deck and looking at the planes. I did a little exploring but as a small airport there wasn't much to look at, so I just ended up back at the terminal and waited for the plane. Something that was really funny to me was this one boy keeping himself entertained by talking about a game he had and how "if you have 15 things then you have 15, but if you have 20 things then you have 20" or whatever it was. To most people this would just be kind of cute and kind of annoying, but I thought it was hilarious because that reminds me of the "and you know what happened next" story. A little back story, when I was like 5 or so I went to a family reunion with my parents and grandparents, and supposedly I didn't stop talking over the entire 10 hour ride and like every other sentence in my recounting of the cartoons I watched was "and you know what happened next." When I heard that I was thinking "that must have been what I sounded like back then." The plane ride to Dallas was pretty uneventful, I just played Animal Crossing while watching Movie Money Confidential (a documentary on independent movie financing), and some of the Apple TV Plus movie Luck.
Dallas though is when things got crazy. I want to say that our gate changed 3 times (one as we were getting off the plane and going to the gate, two after we had made it to the gate and settled in for waiting); always in terminal C so we didn't have to take the people mover, but still "gather everything and move" while we were trying to get lunch (mom-in-law and I each had a cheeseburger from TGI Friday's quick service, and mskate ended getting Chick-Fil-A by the way). It was kind of interesting though, since we experienced 3 different types of gates; the first was kind of open with some modern design in the chairs, the second was a pretty basic gate with the "connected leather airport chairs," and the third was kind of a mix with "updated connected leather airport chairs" with power outlets and some with recliner leg rests. I also stopped at the same candy store from some days ago to see if they had any different spongebob eggs, but they didn't and were all Sandy. Oh well. On the final flight to home I finished Luck and watched most of an episode of Bell Air, the Peacock Original drama version of the Fresh Prince of Bell Air show. Unlike the Saved By The Bell show, this one was kind-of good since it wasn't trying to critique the original, and I guess the Fresh Prince story lends itself to drama stories more than Saved By The Bell (especially since they tackled some heavy plots in the original Fresh Prince), but it was just kind of lacking since it didn't have the original cast (Will Smith was Will, Alfonso Ribeirto was Carlton, James Avery was Uncle Phil) and I for one watched Fresh Prince for the comedy not for the situations.
When we got back things were pretty simple. We left the airport and went to the parking structure. It wasn't very hard to find the car, and no difficulties on the way back. The parking was a little expensive ($80), but whatever. Since the replacement xbox media remote for IRA and dad-in-law it came while we were away I sent it home with mom-in-law. This was a great trip. It was great meeting Aunt P, and then I saw the governor and bishop at mass, and then I went to the oldest video store and got an interview with the owner, on top of all the other neat things that happened. This was a great way to spend the New Year. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Hey everyone, it's Christmas time again. Mskate and I got our Christmas tree up and all our decorations. We also had to take down our usual decorations, but couldn't find a good place for the American Girl Doll bike, so I used our left over wrapping paper scraps to wrap it up and make a Christmas scene.
Before I get into the big festivities, I have to tell a pre-festivities story that will pan out later. I don't know exactly how IRA found out about this, but he learned that my grandma didn't have a timer for her Christmas lights and bought her one. Since my grandma is his grandma-in-law, he didn't know where she lived and needed me to go with him. We stopped at the McDonalds by her for lunch and to maybe get Encanto Happy Meal Toys since mskate wanted them. We didn't want to deal with the drive through and thankfully the lobby was open for carryout. Unfortunately they didn't have Encanto anymore, and we ended up getting a Micky's Runaway Railway and Luca toy. I'll just try to sell those on ebay later. We setup the timer and watched the Rugrats 2021 Holiday special. It was cool, we learned about Las Posadas (because as my mom likes to say, "everything I learned about other religions and cultures I learned from the Rugrats"). It was fun.
OK, so it's Christmas Eve, and it's time for us to exchange gifts with my maternal grandma. We always exchange gifts on Christmas Eve with her ever since I was little, and part of the tradition was we would go to McDonalds while Santa delivered the presents. We didn't do it last year because everything was closed, and we almost didn't this year because Mom called and asked if dining area was open and when she heard "no," she thought that meant it was drive through only and we did frozen oven pizza. Because IRA and I went a week or 2 earlier we knew that the lobby was open, and I had to keep the tradition alive, I walked there and got grandma a McDouble and a large fry to share with everyone. We still had frozen pizza, but we also had some McDonalds When I got back I yelled "Santa Came!" like I would have when I was little.
Time for presents. I got some PS4 games that I got on black friday and amazon prime day that my mom and grandma bought off me, some gift cards, candy, hand cream, and some puzzles. Mskate got me a present she was VERY proud of, Recess Miracle on 3rd Street on DVD, because it wasn't available on disney plus. Unfortunately for her I already had it on VHS from when I was a child, but it's good to have it on DVD now (but she was still a bit sad that I already had it on a home media). Mskate got some candy, puzzles, gift cards, and a special gift that I helped my grandma give. But before I get to that, I need to go through the gifts we gave my grandma. We got her an ornament we painted together some weeks ago, a Minnie Mouse we bought her in Disney World, a build a bear shirt we got on sale in Disney World, some gift cards, and this special gift of gift. Grandma is always saying "I don't have anything for you to eat" whenever we come over, especially since mskate has multiple food allergies. Well, on prime day I found these organic fruit snack starburst things that I knew mskate would like, but I knew she would like them "too much" and they wouldn't last a week in our house, so I wrapped them up as a gift from grandma to mskate, put it in a box, and then wrapped it up as a gift from me to grandma. When she grabbed the box, I told mskate to go over to her and get ready. When she opened it and saw it was another present, I said "read the label" and she handed the inside package to mskate, and mskate liked the organic starburst to keep at her house. We also gave vikingpolak some gifts, a universal socket, a tactical flashlight, and something I'm forgetting. Oh well, it was still fun. My parents got clothes and gift cards.
After gifts we went to church. It was a good service. After church mskate and I took dad back with us so he could get dinner started. Dad made a pot roast and some baked potatoes. It was really good. After dinner we packed up and went to mskate's parents house for the night. We exchanged some pre-gifts with her parents, some clothes and ornaments, and gave the dogs some toys. I wanted to watch A Christmas Story on TBS with IRA, but he isn't a fan of A Christmas Story so we watched my new Recess DVD. After the DVD it was time for everyone to go to bed because "Santa had to come set-up." I wasn't ready to sleep yet, so I watched some of A Christmas Story in bed on my phone. IRA offered to let me watch it on his DVD copy, but it has to be 24-hours on TBS, because 24-hours of A Christmas Story on TBS is my 14 year long tradition.
OK, it's Christmas morning. Last year we learned our lesson and put the dog's presents up high so Dalilah wouldn't get to them. IRA though was up at 4AM excited for all the stuff. Even though he's 24 years old, he's still a kid at heart and gets really excited for Christmas morning. The rest of us got up at about 7:30 AM, and we started at around 8AM (and while everyone was waking up, I watched some more of A Christmas Story). It was quite the sight, because my in-laws get REALLY into Christmas. I got some cool Sonic and Pokemon socks, some lego sets, puzzles, games, and blu-rays. Mskate got puzzles, legos, clothes, and Addie the American Girl Doll with bed. IRA got a bunch of movies, and we got him a "pokematic family staple," The 3 Stooges complete collection of DVD. He was REALLY excited about that. As for my parent-in-laws, we got dad a USB fan and washing machine cleaner (because that's the kind of stuff he likes), and mom got a peanuts colorform and spoon rest. They got some other things as well from us, but those were the key things that really got them excited. It's funny, mskate and her mom always had difficulty shopping for her dad because his standards were either too high, or they paid too much for what they bought, and they just didn't know what to buy him, then I came along and said "for the man who loves his computer and to keep the AC off in the summer, give him a USB desk fan."
OK, now it's time for breakfast. I had an over easy egg and medium well bacon, mskate had an egg replacement omelet, and everyone else had this egg casserole and medium rare bacon. While breakfast was cooking I watched some more Christmas Story, but with the west coast TBS feed because that was closer to where I left off last time. A little later mskate and I went to pick up her aunt to have breakfast and christmas with us. Nothing too spectacular to say, except IRA and I took her back afterwards and I finished watching A Christmas Story after that (once again, on the west coast feed), and that's how I watched all of A Christmas Story over 4 airings this year.
OK, now it's now about 2 PM, and time for us to spend time with my side of the family. My parents throw a party every Christmas and this year was no exception. Vikingpolak picked up my grandma, and their accordion friends showed up a little bit after. The really fun thing though was mskate's cousin M came as well. Mom said "if cousin M isn't doing anything, he can come to our house," and he did. We all visited for the first hour or 2, introducing cousin M to everyone and catching up on life. After that we had dinner. Since my parent's dining room table isn't big enough for everyone there was a "kids table" and "adult table." Since there's normally more than 10 people at these functions and my parent's china set is only for 10 people, and I'm a bit clumsy, I normally have to use a normal dinner plate, so when I asked "where's my plate," I wasn't being rude or entitled, I just knew my place. However, because Christmas was 10 people this year I got a china plate this year. I had ham, green beans, and a roll. After dinner we did the accordion sing along. IRA and mom-in-law came over for that, and it was fun. This was something new for cousin M, and he enjoyed it. While we were singing tanman called to wish everyone Merry Christmas. I was one of the last people to talk to him so I didn't know who to hand him off to, so I said "here, talk to cousin M." Neither of them knew what to so, but mom was like "no, here, talk to your accordion grandparents." After the sing along we all said our goodbyes and went back to mskate's parent's house since we still had festivities with my parents the next day. IRA and I watched one of his new movies, The Suicide Squad, not to be confused with Suicide Squad. This is the R-rated soft reboot, and I gotta say, it was pretty gross. Like, LOADS of gore and brutal deadly injuries, and I guess this is what people wanted, but it was a little too much for my tastes.
OK, it's now the 26th, the first day of Kwanza, and the day we're exchanging gifts with my parents. We met my parents and vikingpolak at Sunday church and had a good mass. My parents still had some setting up to do so vikingpolak, mskate, and I drove around the city a little. We went to the restaurant with really good gluten free bread to see if we could buy 5 pieces of bread quick and easy. Unfortunately the restaurant was closed so we just drove to the edge of the city and then back to my parents house. When we got there my parents had it set-up like they always do (brother's pile, my pile, their piles, and now mskate's pile). We added our stuff to their piles. Some of their key presents were a new French press for dad (since his was falling apart), a set of cooking tongs with a silicone tip one, and mom got a soap dispenser that dispenses soap in the shape of micky's head. There were some other things, like gift cards, but they aren't the main things that got a lot of fun. We also got my parents shirts from our Disney trip, and they all really liked them. We got vikingpolak some other things, but what they were escape me at the moment. Mskate and I got some puzzles, candy, a shirt or 2, gift cards, a build a bear thing, and plasticine clay builder thing. Vikingpolak then gave everyone special gifts. He gave everyone a utility bucket with a stuffed animal and gift card in it. I had a legendary pokemon, mskate got a corgi dog in a santa costume, dad got a snoopy in his WW2 flying ace costume, and mom got a queen bee. After gift exchanging we packed up our stuff and went back to mskate's parents house to pack up everything. The rest of the day was pretty basic, and we had some relaxing.
OK, now it's time to enjoy my week off. Monday was a day of shopping and doctors. Mskate needed to get some blood work done, so we went there after doing some shopping at BJs. Tuesday was more shopping, this time at IKEA and Ollies, and then dinner at an upscale steak house because we had a coupon for a free appetizer. That ended up getting crazy because while backing out I accidently hit the car behind me. I went around the restaurant asking "do you have a dark gray traverse?" and eventually found the owner. It was just minor damage, some scratches on the bumpers, but we still filed the police report. I called my insurance and got things taken care of, but it was a crazy night.
Wednesday is when things got "fun again." Mskate had a doctor's appointment at 10 so I waited outside and watched Elvira while she was in there, and after that we went to see my aunt and grandpa. It was an hour and a half drive up to them, and then we had a fun visit. We exchanged some gifts, and they really enjoyed them. My grandpa liked to carve wood in retirement when he could and one thing he really liked to carve was santas, so instead of putting up a tree with ornaments my aunt puts up multiple little pencil trees and all her carved santas up in a little santa village. Some weeks ago we took my grandma to a pottery painting place and made a santa ornament for my aunt and grandpa for the santa village. I think he fits in perfectly with the rest of the santas.
We also got my grandpa a pair of wireless headphones for the TV. My grandpa is losing his hearing so he keeps the TV kind of loud, and one time she asked "is there a way to give him headphones or something," and after looking at the TV I said "yes there is," and when I saw bluetooth headphones on prime day I said "this would be great for grandpa," and since I already had a bluetooth transmitter that plugs into a headphone jack I knew I could get this for them. Unfortunately I forgot what the specific jacks were on her TV and didn't bring an RCA to 3.5mm jack adapter, but it works for his ipad and the cell phones since there's a standard 3.5mm audio cable option, and they are happy about them. We also got them bird feeder cylinders and lindor chocolates, and they enjoyed them. We had ham sandwiches for lunch, and we had some good conversations. It was a fun little day.
OK, it's Thursday now, and it's dad-in-law's birthday today. We went to my dad's first because we had to pick up some stuff and just wanted to see him. After that we went to mskate's parent's house and played our new Disney Eye Found it game. Mom-in-law didn't understand it too well, but IRA enjoyed it. After that IRA and I watched an episode of Seinfeld and then we just waited around for dad-in-law to come home from work. I played Animal Crossing New Horizon and watched Just Go With It on Hulu. When he got home we ordered pizza and made a lava cake we got from BJs on Monday. Everyone enjoyed them. It was a fun day.
Alright it's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday, and New Years Eve. Mskate and I planned on going to the American Girl Doll Store in Columbus for the new year release of the girl of the year, because mskate really wants the girl of the year since she's a future Olympian and her welly wisher sister is a figure skater. Thursday night she learned that they released them 2 days early, and so we went there New Years Eve before going to our hotel. It was a really fun store, and I may put some clips up.
We got the Welly Wisher, the skating outfit, an Olympic medal presentation set on sale, and some blind bags we felt to figure what we'd get (milk and eggs, cheese and grater, and waffle iron). After the store we went to our hotel and it took us a little while to check in (many people were checking in as well), so I just watched hulu while I waited. After checking in we drove around our hotel to find dinner. We found a Japanese restaurant next to a barcade (arcade that is paid for with alcoholic drinks) called Level One. We ordered avacado sushi rolls and a salmon sushi roll for mskate and steak teppan yaki for me. While we waited for our food, I went to the barcade and played "Russian Tetris" (the arcade version with more Russian imagery" and different mechanics and logic, knowledgeable Tetris players know that there are subtle but major differences between releases), and more importantly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles In Time. So, little story; when I was about 9 and my brother was 7, we went to a hotel in Canada called The Wheels Inn, where they have a giant arcade, mini-amusement park, bowling alley, laser tag, shuffle board, light gun shooting gallery, mini golf, giant "McPlayland" thing that was so big I sometimes got lost in it, bounce house, and more, and the game that captured our attention the most was TMNT Turtles In Time, but we weren't good enough to get past the 2nd level. When I saw it, I knew I had to play it, and if it was free play, I had to beat it.
It took about an hour and 40 free credits, but I managed to beat it. Young me was proud. The food was ready for a while, and a little cold, but it was worth it to me to beat it. When I sent the picture of the victory screen to my family they all said "oh that's great." After getting our food we went back to the hotel and ate dinner. The food was good, but not very filling (I'll get to that later). Mskate played with her new dolls and clothes, putting the Olympic outfit on the doll she brought and putting the skating outfit on the welly wisher.
After the play time and watching an episode of Numb3rs on hulu I went back to the barcade. I didn't buy a drink for playing TMNT while I waited for the other food, so I figured I should go back and get a drink. Mskate didn't want to go with me (not her thing, and she was tired), so it was just me and I could have all the fun I wanted. I bought a TRON, a cocktale with voka, rum, gin, and blue curacao "with a splash of sour and sprite," and it was REALLY good. If you ever go to Level One, I recommend it. I needed something to play with one hand while I drank so I played Q-Bert, a light gun game, and Frogger. After finishing my drink I played Tapper (which also has some history since that was my favorite arcade game to play on Shockwave.com in 5th grade, along with Rampage), Donkey Kong, and Punch Out. I could have played more, but I had to get back to mskate (but I'm definitely coming back here). Mskate was hungry for more food, so I bought her another order of avocado rolls. She kind of wanted more salmon rolls, but 1 salmon roll costs about the same as 8 avocado rolls ($4.50 for 8 avocado rolls, $3.25 for 1 salmon roll), and when she said "I could have gotten more salmon rolls," I almost said "like hell you are." She enjoyed the avocado rolls, so that was good. When I went to order more sushi rolls one of the employees said "hey, didn't you already order today?" and I said "yeah but we want more." When I got back mskate ate and then went to sleep while I watched Numb3rs waiting for midnight. Around 11:30 I accidentally woke her back up and 30 minutes later we watched the ball drop and rang in the new year with some kisses.
New Years Day started off OK. I woke up around 8:30 and went down to see about continental breakfast. The hotel was asking $12 for their continental breakfast, and I was like "no, I'll just eat the snacks and poptarts we brought." I ate my snack breakfast and called to find out when checkout was while mskate looked to see if there was a mass around us (Solemnity of Marry). Turns out checkout was the same time mass would be over, so we packed up our stuff, checked out, and went to mass. Since people were loud the night before (because new years), mskate didn't sleep as well as she would have liked, and wasn't sure if she would want to go back to the store, but would make the final call after mass. When mass was over she said "it's less than 15 minutes away (just barely at 13), so I want to go." We did and she found matching pajamas for the welly wisher and her, which was great. Unfortunately there weren't any big festivities, so that wasn't very good. Oh well.
After the store we went to the "mall building," where they have restaurants and this cool game store. Mskate got Bibibop and I got panda express, 2 things we don't get very often. At the game store I looked around at all the coin pushers they had to see if any were ready to pay out (I have a coin pusher at home and played it enough to be able to tell when they're ready to pay out), but unfortunately none were. We drove home and thus concluded our little adventure.
Overall this was quite a fun vacation. If I could do it over the only thing I would change is remembering the right cable for the headphones and getting it completely set-up. Well, now it's time for me to get back to real life. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
