A very fine decoration it will be

2003-12-23 - 9:39 p.m.

In short, today rocked.

We celebrated Christmas today. We had a lot of fun and everyone was very happy with all their gifts. There is one in particular that my brother and sister-in-law gave to my parents and me which I'm very excited about.

I'm going to Hawaii. That's right, they are paying for a trip for all five of us to go to the big island in April. They have the itinerary all planned out. We had already decided that we were going to do something together as a family over spring break, but we were still discussing (or so my parents and I thought) what exactly we were going to do. For Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law gave us a CD-ROM with a Power Point presentation on it. We took it in and popped in my mom's computer. It started out by saying, "What would you like to do for spring break?" Then it had a whole slew of slides with pictures of various things we could do. In the background was playing "I Get Around" by the Beach Boys. Then the music changed to Bing Crosby singing "Mele Kalikimaka" and a slide popped up that said, "How about a trip to Hawaii?" followed by slides detailing our itinerary. It was really cool. We were very surprised. And do you know what's even greater about it? There's no way in heck I'm going to Hawaii in a body that looks like the one I've got right now. No way. It's official, as soon as the fudge is gone (hee hee) the diet begins. Serious diet, none of this half-hearted crap. And of course, there's going to be exercising. In four months I'm not going to look awesome, but I'm certainly going to look better than I look now.

So I'm pretty stoked about all this. My brother and sister-in-law have provided me with inspiration both to want to get my body back into decent shape and to study, take that exam, and get my arse up to Washington.

From my parents the coolest gift I got was a new radio for my car. My old one wasn't horrible, but the main volume button was broken off and the tape player would no longer switch directions. So I got a new one. They payed for installation, too, so all I had to do was take it down to Circuit City and have them install it. Yup, very cool.

Other than opening presents and playing with presents we basically just hung out today. We made homemade pizza for dinner on crusts bought yesterday from Mrs. Nelson's Take-n-Bakery. We loaded them up with tons of toppings and they were awesome.

One of the presents my dad received was the DVD of Errol Flynn's 1938 version of Robin Hood. And I learned something that I'm surprised I didn't know before. In my dad's office, there is a long-bow hanging on the wall. My dad was a really good archer in his younger years and I've always assumed that this bow was his. Turns out, it's not. This bow is the bow that Errol Flynn used in the Robin Hood movie. When I asked him how he ever got ahold of this bow he answered, "Errol Flynn was full of crap." My dad rarely tells stories quickly. He paused for a long moment while we all wondered what the heck that had to do with anything until he continued, "My grandfather was full of crap, too. 'Robin Hood' was filmed in Chico, which is where my grandfather was living at the time and apparently they ran into each other and really hit it off. After the movie was finished filming, he gave the bow to my grandfather who gave it to me because I was the archer in the family." So there you go. How cool is that?

Another cool thing that happened today was that I found out that my friends are willing to tweak their schedules so that we can get together. It makes me so happy. All five of us will be getting together for lunch in a few days. Lunch was the best I could do, but it's better than nothing. Afterwards, Flik, Tigger and I are going to go somewhere and spend the night. We still haven't decided where. Flik wants to go to Bodega Bay. I think Tigger wants to go to Sausalito. I'm happy with anywhere, but I'm kind of leaning towards Monterey.

Tomorrow I'm getting up at the crack of way too early. I'm taking my brother and sister-in-law to the airport. I'm sad that they're leaving, but we've really had a good time together while they were here. And then next time I see them will be in Hawaii!