Happy Holidays!

For those of you that know me, I'm not one to be politically correct. In fact, I pretty much hate all that political correctness crap. With that said, I say happy holidays, not in fear of offending someone with a Merry Christmas, no, but because this post covers both Christmas and New Year (therefore, multiple holidays). :)

I made it home, finally finishing my semester at Columbia, and was greeted by a very welcoming and loving Patrick who took two weeks off! YAY!

So, after being home for a few days, we took off eastward headed to Wisconsin for Christmas with his family. Sam came with us and did amazingly well on the long car ride. It was about 17 hours, and he was a trooper. Much of the time Patrick was driving Sam spent curled up on my lap dozing or purring. However, when I drove, he curled up on the back window. Haha! :D

We made it to WI, and Patrick's younger brother Ben arrived the next day from Rochester, MN. He had left his cat, entropy, at home. We hung out with Ben and were greeted the next day (Christmas Eve) by Patrick's youngest brother, Jeff, and his fiancee, Molly. They brought two cats with them, a young playful one that quickly became a great friend to Sam and an older, more skiddish one that never really warmed up to him or me. There was some drama at the meeting but overall everyone did well.

Christmas was fantastic! It was so great to see everyone open and enjoy their gifts. I love it! Patrick made me an amazingly sweet book full of pictures of my dad, as I didn't really have any but his baby picture. It was very sweet. Overall, the day was fantastic.

The trip ended well, and I saw a bit more of where Patrick grew up, which was very neat.

We split the drive home up over two days, which made it much more tolerable. The hotel in Des Moines was nice. Once we finally got home, we enjoyed a nice snowstorm. We got about 6-8 inches...woo hoo! Sadly, I missed the storm that hammered NYC with more than a foot! :( O well. At least we got some here, and a lot of it is left, surprisingly, because it's been pretty cold.

New Year's Eve, Patrick's friends threw a masquerade party, which was a lot of fun. Surprisingly, everyone showed up in formal dress and a mask! Yay! It was a fun evening, and the next day we enjoyed watching the Rose Bowl game. Patrick was, of course, rooting for Wisconsin. I (surprisingly) rooted for TCU. It was such a fun game to watch, well played by both teams.

And now, we're just enjoying the rest of my break. It'll be hard to go back, but we know it's only a short time more and then I'll be done for good. :)