Happy Boxing Day!

It feels like I blinked a few times, and as if by magic the holidays were over and done with. No big deal, we hardly do a thing for Christmas anymore. It’s pretty much a non-event for us. We did manage to get a nice PNW visit in again this year. A lot of missed connections this year, we didn’t get to see several people that we had hoped to. Regardless, here are a few of the highlights:

- The Squirrels 16th Annual XXXmas Show – My 13th year in a row (if my calculations are correct), the li’l woman’s 12th. It’s reached a point that I can’t even imagine missing out on this holiday shindig/celebration/drunk fest. If need be, I’ll just do a long weekend in the future if I can’t get more time off from work. (Special thanks to Paul for driving down from Portland to attend this with us, and to the Captain for putting us on the list!)

- Pizza and beer at the Big Time, dinner at the Wedgewood Ale House, late night burgers and fries at Dick’s (where’s my damn tartar??!!??), drinks at the Tin Hat (thx Todd!), and the amazing Thai takeout we had our first night there.

- Catching King Kong (pretty good!) at the little theater on San Juan Island, and the latest Harry Potter movie in Everett.

- The nearly 3 pounds of king crab my brother-in-law brought down from Alaska. I have a new favorite food. (Yes, I ate way too much. Yes, I got fat…uh, fatter.) He also managed to find A Christmas Story for rent at the little grocery store on the island, as we were bummed about missing out on the annual marathon on TNT (hmmmm…I guess we have more holiday traditions than I thought).

- The little thrift store we found on the island where we bought a few 75 cent videos to kill some time.

- Watching what little TV I could find late one night on the island (as I mentioned earlier, no cable or satellite there), I realized it was a Canadian station when I saw a Best Buy commercial advertising their annual Boxing Day Sale.

- Our usual visit to Archie McPhee’s to buy useless stuff.

And the lowlights:

- The plumbing backing up on San Juan, so no indoor toilets or bathing for about 24 hours.

- Getting stuck in horrendous traffic driving out to the south end for dinner with friends. (I can’t discuss a Seattle visit without mentioning how the traffic gets steadily worse each time we go there. And now that the monorail project is officially dead, there is no relief in sight.)

Thanks to anyone who put us up, braved the traffic and weather to see us, bought us a drink, or joined us for a meal. I hope everybody enjoyed their holidays, whatever the heck it is you may celebrate. And if your were a frontline soldier in the supposed "War on Christmas," I hope you enjoyed that as well.