What I Did On My Winter Vacation – Part 1

Ah, it feels like forever ago I left work and did a happy dance as I left the building for 2 weeks of bliss and awesomeness.  If you’ve been around for a little while, you know about the magic hat.  And if you don’t, you might click over there to see.  If you are truly lazy (it’s ok, I understand), we put some things we wanted to do in a hat and planned to pick one out every day.  Here is a quick play by play before it all fades into a distant memory.

Friday – Not a hat pick – came home and slept because of too much fun the night before.   Seriously, sometimes I wonder what goes through my head staying up until almost 5am drinking heavily.  This is later than I stayed up ALL VACATION.  By far.  On a schoolnight.  Seriously woman… anyway.  We vegged on the couch and I believe we barely made it to 10pm.  It was a perfectly nice way to start break.

Saturday – Not a hat pick – white elephant party #3.  I think there were errands, some gaming, I got an AWESOME 8 mile run in, and some relaxing before we headed out.  Details here.

Here is me laughing at Zliten’s present:

Sunday – Not a hat pick – video games all day.  We decided to start the hat picks the next day and play the hell out of Crystal Defenders and start Brutal Legend.  It was a sacrifice to be so lazy, but I made do.

Monday – Hat pick – clean out the pantry.  Our first pick was so super exciting!  But, it was needed and it was REALLY, REALLY nice to be able to find things, our pantry is very shallow and very big so it’s hard to lose stuff, but things were beginning to fall behind the doors and get stuck on the sides.  We almost painted it but decided against it.  Then, we hit the gym for a super awesome run and otherwise vegged on the couch again.

Tuesday – Hat pick – mini golf.  After a workout and some lunch, we headed out to an outdoor mini-golf course called peter pan.  It’s not changed since the 70’s and has all sorts of classic obstacles including a 15 foot tall peter pan, and a whale that you shoot your ball into and it comes out the butt.  Written on the butt?  San Diego.  Tee hee.  The place is actually BYOB friendly but being 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon, we refrained. Since this afternoon at the mini golf  course, I will be buying a simulator here to play at home.

The coolest thing?  A film crew came into shoot a movie.  They had everything – two big boom mics, cameras, a director, and two dudes dressed up in full golf attire with clubs and bags.  They were shooting on the white rabbit hole.  I wish I knew what it was all about.

The second coolest thing?  We tied on both 18 whole courses!

Wednesday – Hat pick -bbq adventure in Lockheart.  I’m very happy this one came up.  I got my run on early, and we left shortly after noon.  We drove the hour or so out of town and decided to hit up 3 places for lunch.  We brought a cooler to bring back leftovers and only ordered a little bit at each place.  Vegetarians, you might want to skip this part.

Black’s – it was our favorite.  Everything was great, and they had the best selection of side dishes.  This is not my plate of food but very similar.

Smitty’s – was the most expensive, and while the meat was good, the place reeked of bbq smoke so much it was distracting.  Also, the sides were crappy.  There wasn’t much of a selection, they were tiny, and they tasted like they came from the store.

Kreuz – the meat was a little tough, but the sausage was amazing and so were the ribs.  We didn’t bother with sides because they didn’t look good here either.

Verdict – Blacks was the best, but we still like Mann’s best which is within walking distance from our house.  So there.

Thursday – Not a hat pick – X-mas Eve present opening adventure.  I got up early, got in a workout, and then headed to work for a few hours. Pics somewhat unrelated, I just picked out some of my faves from the day.

There was a lot under the tree so we opened a present every 30 minutes.

It was great fun!  I got such awesomeness as a leopard print snuggie, a runner ID tag for my shoes, a poopin’ polar bear, and the last present of the night – a garmin forunner.

Even though it was WAY over what we decided to spend on each other (ahem!), Zliten decided that was what he wanted to get for me so he did.

He got the 205 but decided he wanted to get me a 305 so we took it back and it’s on back order.  Soon, I will play with it!

Zliten baked us computer bread.

And since I am a less awesome present giver, here are some of his favorites, the hot sauces…

…and the Rush Limbaugh book.  Comedy gold he has said so far.

And then, we passed out just after midnight very sleepy-tired.

Friday – Not a hat pick – X-mas fun with the parents.  After a workout in the morning, we headed up north for lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and copious amounts of sweets (candied popcorn, almond roca, fruitcake, pecan pie).  We played games all day – hand and foot (card game), dominos, golf (card game).  We got (beside money) a set of mugs for each card suit and embroidered aprons with our names on them for each of us.  Rock!  My dad ended up winning all games but the last one – I upset the game.  All in all, it was a great day.

Saturday – Hat Pick – Go see a mooovie.  And well, we had wanted to check out Avatar in 3D for a while so it was a good excuse.  Great movie, even though we had to sit in the front row.  I highly recommend seeing this one in the theater, it was good fun.  It was a full day – we started with some pho, then shoppings, then the movie, and then hit the gym for a run.  I’ve never been so late on a weekend day, so I got there about 50 minutes before closing, so I had to modify – I did a quick warmup, 5 miles, and a very quick cooldown.  Then, we watched some really horrible movies (Troll 1 and Troll 2) and played a drinking game to go along with it.  Good fun!

Part 2, tomorrow!