December 28, 2010

Chinese food

Elizabeth and I have a favorite local Chinese restaurant right down the street. For Christmas, Elizabeth all but demanded a gift card to this restaurant, so I obliged. Why? Not to enjoy a night out having a good Chinese meal, but because Elizabeth wanted $20-worth of egg rolls. Today she bought four egg rolls, and I don't know if much has made her happier in the last month than eating those four egg rolls.

She's kind of a weirdo.

December 27, 2010

Wanna know about our Christmas festivities?

Pam does.

On Thursday, December 16, less than an hour after I finished my last class of the semester at Denver Seminary, Elizabeth and I hit the road for a weekend trip to Iowa to celebrate a friend's wedding (Elizabeth was the bride's personal attendant), and an all-too brief family Christmas with my in-laws.

We did a short leg of our trip on Thursday evening, and then drove the rest of the way to Fort Dodge, IA on Friday. Friday evening we had the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. It was fun to see some friends from college we hadn't seen in a long time.

Saturday morning Elizabeth got to spend some one-on-one time with the bride-to-be over coffee. Then we got ready and headed to the church for photos. After the wedding was the reception -- some more fun with old friends and lots of laughter (and LOTS of COOKIES). We said our goodbyes and headed back to the home in which we were staying (the bride had hooked us up with some family friends who were incredibly hospitable and made our stay in Fort Dodge very comfortable).

Sunday morning we grabbed some breakfast and then headed a couple of hours south where we met up with Elizabeth's parents and brother in Des Moines. We went out to lunch and then headed to the Des Moines Civic Center where we took in a production of The Nutcracker. It was fun! After the show we all went back to the hotel where we hung out for a bit and ate some more REALLY good cookies, baked and brought by Elizabeth's folks (cookies were a big part of the weekend -- and probably much of the reason Elizabeth's been sick for the last week!).

On Monday we drove all the way back home here to Denver (along the way, I swear to you we saw Santa Claus driving a semi truck through Grand Island, Nebraska).

Last week was spent with me working more than usual (the other admin assistant in the church office was out of town for the holidays), and Elizabeth working more than usual (working retail around the holidays is typically not a lot of fun), and both of us trying to purchase a few presents for the other. Elizabeth had to work on Christmas Eve and so was not able to join me at our church's candlelight service, but she didn't have to work too late.

Christmas morning we slept in (until, as Cliff Huxtable would put it, our eyes just POPPED open!). We opened presents. We watched a little bit of A Christmas Story (because I'd never seen it -- verdict? I agree with my wife: it's one of the more obnoxious movies I've ever watched, and I only watched about the first 35 minutes). We made a huge brunch (biscuits, sausage, eggs, hashbrowns, etc.) which tasted delicious. We watched White Christmas (our annual movie tradition, inherited from Elizabeth's family). We pretty much hung out and relaxed. In the evening, we watched the Cowboys game. Then we went to bed.

Any questions?

December 11, 2010

A sentence

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

That's not just nonsense. It is a grammatically valid sentence.

December 8, 2010

iBand

There's probably something to be said about rampant consumerism in this video, but this video is really nifty. A church's "iBand" plays some Christmas songs using only iPads and iPhones.

December 2, 2010

Playoff Machine

This is football-related, so my apologies to anyone who's not an NFL follower.

THIS is ESPN's "NFL Playoff Machine." It'll give you playoff scenarios for every possible outcome of every game for the rest of the season. It's all up to you. It's totally rad.

Yes, I said rad (that's how cool it is).