Christmas Vacation 2003

Mom and Dad got to go somewhere for Christmas 2003: up north a few towns to house sit and cat sit for Dad's brother and family. After finals were over, Dad's brother gave us a ride north. Our student apartment at the time wasn't bad, but it sure was nice to get away to a "real" house (and its accompanying pantry). Our hosts left not long after we got there, and we settled in to enjoy it all, like the college kids on vacation that we were. After we'd memorized the house, we ventured out to the bus stop and made our way to a shopping center with a movie theater. We got ourselves a big book of Dr. Seuss stories that included "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and then watched the third Lord of the Rings movie, thus completing the Lord of the Rings arc of our courtship story.

Mom's folks came up for Christmas, but didn't stay long because of weather concerns. In years to come, one of Mom's favorite things about living too far for her folks to drive was that people stopped changing their plans because of weather rumors. :) After they left, we lounged about some more until our hosts returned, just in time to save us from starvation after we'd eaten all their food. Mom also inadvertently spoiled their cats rotten with petting.

But, alas, the end of house sitting marked the beginning of a rough time for Mom: wisdom teeth removal. The dentist used a local anesthetic to remove the sideways-growing rebels, which meant that both Mom and Dad knew about most of the surgery. Mom's Uncle Jim gave us a ride home afterwards and helped us get prescriptions filled. We'd checked out It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World from the library somewhere around the same time, and let me tell you, that was quite a crazy New Year's Eve, living it up on yogurt and pudding while mostly passed out from pain and meds in Mom's case and waiting on Mom in Dad's case, all with a bizarre show in the background. Amazingly, we did manage to hear the fireworks when they started, and even staggered outside for a minute to see some. We also managed to regain consciousness by the time classes started up again a couple of days later.