Christmas recap

I realize it's been a whole week since I last updated this blog. I thought I'd have TONS of time to do this while on vacation...I was wrong!

We had a very nice Christmas eve and Christmas. They were both filled with family, friends, and lots of good food. That's what Christmas is all about, right? I swear we have both eaten for 5 days straight. We didn't do a whole lot of gifts this year...it's so not necessary. Abhay's favorite gift was a Green Bay Packers blanket I had made for him, and mine was the Brewstation Coffee maker he gave me before we flew home for the holidays.

We've also gotten the chance to check out 3 new movies while on vacation. Seven Pounds, Marely and Me, and Slumdog Millionaire. While they were all very good and entertaining in their own respects Slumdog Millionare is by far the best movie we have seen in YEARS!!! (Click on the title to read more about it) It it doesn't win any Oscars, I will be sadly disappointed. RUN, don't walk, to see it now. (and I'm not being biased just because I love India. )

Last Friday night we were able to meet up with some of my friends from high school. It was so good to see my very dearest friend Beth, my friend Jessica and her husband Ryan who were home from London, and our friends Mike and Leslie. We plan to go and see our Bemidji friends at the end of this week.

We still have one more week left of our vacation. We plan to spend lots of time with family and friends, sleep, watch movies/hockey, and enjoy the cold and snow!!

My Nephews Cade (5) Carter (2) and I making dessert for Christmas

Abhay and his new blanket

It's the most wonderful time...

We made it Minnesota safe and sound on Saturday despite all the yucky weather We squeaked by with no delays. Seriously, we got really lucky. We are so happy our flights were early in the morning. When our connection flight from Minneapolis to Grand Forks took off at 9:15am there was only ONE runway open. We were greeted in Grand Forks by my dad and my brother Brad (driving his truck)...and also -30 degree weather and a full raging blizzard. We're not used to this junk anymore. When we left Indianapolis it was almost 60 degrees!! YUCK!

Yesterday was spent baking cookies and candies all day long. Abhay and I had a very good time. He was a HUGE help and did all the almond bark items. My mom hung out with us, and of course supervised all we did. :) We ended up making 11 different kinds of cookies, bars, and treats. I got really tired and didn't get everything made that I wanted to. Tomorrow I plan to do a bit more.

My parents are right at the end of a remodeling project of their house. They have redone their kitchen, redone their upstairs bathroom, ripped a wall out of the living room, and have put new flooring throughout the house. It looks gorgeous and we're so happy for them. Abhay "got" to help rip out the 20 year old living room carpet last night. What a job!! My mom and I "supervised" the work. haha

Today Abhay had the chance to go and visit his old co-workers at Arctic Cat while I was getting the full beauty treatment at my favorite salon. He had a great time seeing and talking with old friends. Afterwards we met my mom at her office, helped her out for a bit, and then headed to Grand Forks to do some last minute shopping. We truly are enjoying every minute spent with my family. We don't realize how much we really do miss our families until we are around them.

Us making cookies at my mom and dad's

Vacation!!!

It's official, my Christmas vacation had BEGUN!

I was supposed to sub today in my favorite classroom, but school was canceled today due to yucky weather. There was a bit of an ice storm last night. To me, it didn't seem like a reason to cancel school. You cancel school when there is a blizzard or it's -50 degrees with wind-chill--not ice. I will forever be a Minnesotan, I guess.

Tomorrow I "GET" to go to another lovely dentist appt. This one shouldn't be as bad as the last one. *knock on wood* I just need to be fitted for a crown and have a temp. one put. I also need to run around town and pick up the last few little items needed for Christmas.

Abhay begins his vacation on Friday. (and he couldn't be more excited about it...maybe only if we were going to India) We're both taking that day to celebrate Christmas together--just the two of us, pack, and get ready to fly back up to Minnesota early Saturday morning!!! We're excited to have two weeks to spend up there. This time, we're excited to be able to see dear friends we miss so very much. We're trying something different, we're going to get a 1-day, 1-way rental car to get to the airport in Indianapolis, and one to get back. We found a good deal--19 bucks each way. We figure it's MUCH cheaper than leaving one of our cars at the aiport for two week (plus they will be able to be home in our nice warm garage) or inconveniencing one of our friends to get up in the middle of the night to take us to the airport. We'll see how it works out...

--Mandy

Bah Humbug!

I have been having a whole lot of trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Normally, Once December hits I love listening to Christmas music, doing Christmas shopping, watching Christmas specials, etc... But this year I just haven't been able to get into those things.

Last night I finally figured out why. For the very first time in my life I'm living in a state without snow and warmer temperatures (30-50 degrees most days). Funny how I equate the holidays with snow and cold weather. It's what I've known my whole life. Now that I've realized my reason why, I hope I can overcome it and enjoy the next 12 days to the fullest.

--Mandy

You'll shoot your eye out!

Abhay and I LOVE the movie "A Christmas Story." These 12 facts about the movie were on Yahoo! today. We know many people love this movie as much as we do, so we thought we'd share this super fun article

12 Things You Might Not Know About A Christmas Story (even though you’ve seen it 90 times)

1. Jack Nicholson was very interested in playing Ralphie’s dad. But casting (and paying) Jack would have meant doubling the budget, so he was removed from consideration. Director Bob Clark – who didn’t know Nicholson was interested at the time – says Darrin McGavin was the perfect choice, and I’d have to agree. I think Jack would have been too much of a scene-stealer.

2. What does Porky’s, the raunchy ’80s teen sex movie, have to do with a wholesome film like A Christmas Story? Bob Clark directed both – Porky’s in 1982 and A Christmas Story in 1983. If Porky’s hadn’t given him the professional and financial success he needed, he wouldn’t have been able to bring A Christmas Story to the big screen.

3. For anyone keeping count, Ralphie says he wants the Red Ryder BB Gun 28 times throughout the course of the movie. That’s approximately once every three minutes and 20 seconds.

4. Peter Billingsley, AKA Ralphie, has been good friends with Vince Vaughn since they both appeared in the CBS Schoolbreak Special (their version of the after-school special) in the early ’90s. He doesn’t do much acting these days, but he did make a surprise appearance on the “Vince Vaughn Wild West Comedy Show” in Memphis, Tenn., in 2005. Peter’s doing quite well for himself, though. He was the executive producer of Iron Man and had a brief bit as William Ginter Riva – I’ve seen Iron Man twice, but I can’t place his character. I’ll have to go back and look. Peter also executive produced Vince’s latest movie, Four Christmases (which he also had a cameo in), as well as 2006’s The Break-Up.

5. Mythbusters tested whether it was possible to get your tongue truly stuck on a piece of cold metal. Guess what? It is. So don’t triple dog dare your best friend to try it.

6. Scott Schwartz, who played Flick (who stuck his tongue to the frozen flagpole), was submerged in the adult film industry for a number of years. He got out in 2000 to try to become a mainstream actor again, but I can’t say he’s done much of note: Community College (“A love story between four dudes and their ability to get free drinks”) and Skinwalker, which starred ex-MTV veejay Jesse Camp, if that tells you anything. Joey Buttafuoco is in it, too, and gets billing over our poor Flick. Sad.

7. Next time you’re in Cleveland, you can visit the original house from the movie for only $7.50. It was sold on eBay in 2004 for $150,000. Collector Brian Jones bought the house and restored it to its movie glory and stocked it up with some of the original props from the film, including Randy’s snowsuit.

8. Director Bob Clark got the idea for the movie when he was driving in the car with a date. He heard Jean Shepherd on the radio doing a reading of his short story collection, “In God We Trust… All Others Pay Cash,” which included some bits that eventually ended up in A Christmas Story. Clark said he drove around the block for an hour until the program ended, which his date was not too happy about.

9. The Wonder Years was inspired by A Christmas Story. In fact, in one of the last few episodes, Peter Billingsley appeared as one of Kevin Arnold’s roommates.

10. The real Red Ryder BB Gun was first made in 1938 and was named after a comic strip cowboy. You can still buy it today for the low, low price of $44.99. But the original wasn’t quite the same as the one in the movie – it lacked the compass and sundial that both the Jean Shepard story and the movie call for. Special versions had to be made just for A Christmas Story.

11. While we’re talking shopping – you know you want the leg lamp. Put it in your window! Be the envy of your neighbors! It’s a Major Award! You can buy it here, but if you’re not feeling quite so flamboyant you can get a replica that serves as a nightlight for $14.99. The people who own the house also run a gift shop, and they sell pretty much everything you could possibly want from the movie – the decoder pin ($7.99), Lifebuoy soap ($3.99), the leg lamp variants mentioned above, and even pieces of the original house.

12. There’s a sequel of sorts, My Summer Story, which came out in 1994. Kieran Culkin plays Ralphie, Mary Steenburgen is his mom, and Charles Grodin is his dad. I’m not sure if it’s because of this movie or A Christmas Story, but whenever our dogs are running around together in a pack, my husband always yells, “It’s the Bumpus Hounds!”

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Don’t shoot your eye out (kid).

Dec 7, 2008

Thursday it was time for me to FINALLY go to the dentist. I've been dealing with a painful, and cracked abscess tooth since last February. I really, really, really dislike going to the dentist so I kept putting it off. A few weeks ago my tooth cracked to the point that I had a whole in my mouth when I smiled, so I knew it was time. I sat through a very uncomfortable, although not painful, root canal. The dentist then did an impression for a crown on that tooth. While taking the impression what was left of my tooth fell out. So he had to "start over again" and insert a rod into my gums...and three hours after I walked in I left the office with a "fake tooth" I'll go back next week to get properly fitted for a crown... YUCK!

Yesterday Abhay had a job to do. We finally purchased a pair of wire cutters and Abhay took down the "duck fence" under the workbench in the garage. It's so nice to have that open. We can fit SO many more items under it. He also straighted up the garage and made room for the new chest freezer we purchased today (thanks dad!!). Yesterday evening we went downtown Columbus and checked out an Electric Lights Christmas parade. It was very neat!! When the parade started the weather was awesome, but by the middle of it the wind picked up and it got quite chilly (nothing compared to Minnesota though). But, we made it through. Afterwards we met up with our friends Shiva/Sheetal, Ajit, Sangram, and others for a late dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and went to a movie. It was good to catch up with friends. We're so thankful to have friends here in Columbus that feel like family.

--Mandy

Photos

I promised a few weeks ago to post a few of pictures from our photo shoot, so here they are. These are my three favorites.

Thanksgiving

We had a fantastic time in Minnesota with my family for Thanksgiving. We ate a TON, got rested up, watched movies, drank lots of coffee with my mom and dad, and did a whole lot of Christmas shopping. It was a great 4 days, but went by so very fast. It made us both realize yet again that we really miss being near family. But we'll be headed back there Dec 20-Jan 4.

Travel home was horrid. Our plane from left 2 hours late from Fargo and then we were stuck in Chicago for 7.5 hours. But everyone was in the same boat, weather this side of the Mississippi was bad everywhere. We were scheduled to make it home at 4pm...but got home at 3am instead. Abhay was able to go into work late, and I took the day off. :)

--Mandy