A whirlwind of a break is coming to an end with me on the couch in front of the NFL Playoffs. The apartment is clean, two cats are asleep, and I’m refreshed and ready to start the third quarter, and all the schedule changes and challenges that will go along with it.
Break started with a trip home, a ride from Sean and Morgen and a stop at Amy’s Omelet House in Cherry Hill. That afternoon was fun as family and friends got together and ate pizza and had some cold beers at Mom and Dad’s, then we went to the Office Lounge and the Toms River Diner. That catapulted me into a few days of working at The Candle Shoppe again, a couple of Wawa Gobblers (!!) and several Porkroll Egg and Cheese sandwiches from Bayside Bagel in Silverton.
Christmas Eve was a blast; watching Jayden and Ryan play together is really what Christmas is about. Prior to the party, Colleen and I helped Jayden paint birdhouses for Grammy, Julie, Katy, Grandma, and his mother. He was a riot, telling Grandma when she walked in that “Don’t worry about these, Grandma, these are just for random people.” This was after he pointed out that it would be “awkward” if Grandma walked in while we were painting hers. He also read me a book. He’s getting so big!
Christmas Day was wonderful, too. Colleen and I spent Christmas Morning at Mom and Dad’s, which included some AWESOME hot sauce on the tasty egg thing that Mom made. Then we spent the rest of the day with her family, which was great. Her family is wonderful, wonderfully welcoming to me, and we were able to share lots of laughs. I even got to help out in the kitchen, as Colleen and I helped prepare dinner.
Then, for reasons unknown to me, we got onto the longest flight of all time (it just would NOT END) and landed in Vegas again on the 26th…and didn't get into the hotel until late. Though standing in line for the shuttle to take us back to my car in the Economy Lot was amusing, it also took forever. We spent the night in Las Vegas (which included our neighbors in the hotel coming in at ? o’clock screaming the lyrics to What Does the Fox Say?) and then drove the six hours to Salt Lake City, Utah. There was a time change we forgot about, and we stopped extra times because we were both exhausted, so the trip effectively took 8 hours, and because of various other delays we lost out on naptime prior to the rehearsal dinner for Patrick and Hilary’s wedding, which was a lot of fun.
The wedding day saw Colleen off early for bridesmaidy things, and me with a four hour marathon of Bar Rescue. Cool. I even got it together enough to walk across the street to SubWay for a pastrami sandwich (any port in a storm, folks). The wedding ceremony was very nice, and afterward, I wound up in a college bar in downtown SLC with another boyfriend of a bridesmaid while they did pictures. OK! The reception afterwards was a ton of fun, really a great party, and I got to spend it with good people. Colleen set me up with a few of her college friends while she was occupied. It was a fun time.
Then it was back to Bullhead, lunch with Paul and Robin, and a stopover at Price’s. Colleen was supposed to leave Wednesday morning…another quick turnaround in a break full of them. Somehow, her flight was switched to Friday, which allowed her to be there when we picked up our new cat.
Really a good break, but an exhausting one, and the fact that I got a couple of extra days with Colleen at the end was fantastic. Back for a quick trip in February to celebrate another wedding. Can’t wait!
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