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Christmas Eve, Michele Style

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On Christmas Eve we played a little Apples to Apples. Cousin Kevin and I became embroiled in a competitive battle to amass all the green cards. Uncle Dick quietly and methodically just collected them off on the side so at the end the three of us were in a heated battle. No, wait. Two of us were in a heated battle and one of us was just moseying around, snagging the last green card. I don’t even remember what happened in the last round except that I lost but in the penultimate round….well, that was a good one.

The word? It doesn’t matter what it was because it was Vadin’s turn. We’ll call it “Contrary” because it’s the best word for Vadin. Vadin is 13 years old. Or maybe 12. Who knows. And he solely pick his favorite red card based on THINGS HE LIKES. He often doesn’t know the meaning of the green card OR the meaning of a red card. Picking one from your hand to give him is a crap shoot. You know he likes dogs so you’ll pick a dog but you’ll manage to pick a breed of dog he doesn’t like. I gave him the FBI once thinking maybe he would like them based on his taste in movies? I mean movies with FBI in them sometimes have car chases and explosions. But his exact words as he tossed it aside were, “I hate the po-po.”

“I HATE THE PO-PO.”

So, penultimate round and Kevin and I have recently discovered that I am winning with 7 green cards and he has 6. Also Uncle Jim has been by to mock me for my child-hood way of throwing a tantrum when playing cards until my brother let me win just to shut me up. He’s just jealous of all the cash money I won off him playing poker when he was drunk and I was EIGHT.

The word is not “contrary” but we’re saying it is. I give Vadin “Toys”. This is the best I can do. I mean, TOYS. He LOVES toys. Kevin gives him “Toasting Marshmallows”. It doesn’t matter what anyone else gave him.

Vadin: I like toys…

Me: That’s right you do. Toys are GREAT.

Kevin: You know what else is great? Toasting Marshmallows.

Me: What would you rather be doing–sitting in a cold dark forest on a damp log watching your marshmallow burn or being inside playing a video game?

Kevin (muttered): Dammit.

I know my youngest cousin. But I always underestimate the other one.

Vadin: So toys includes video games?

Me: Yes. It includes all the toys. All of them.

Kevin: Even BARBIES.

Me: NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Vadin: I don’t like [with proper tween boy disgust] Barbies.

So Kevin won that round. And Dick somehow snuck in and won the next and last one and the three of us each ended up with 7 green cards in a big old tie. Heh. I was SO CLOSE.

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Pictures!

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I’ve been kind of lazy and not uploading or writing about my pictures lately. Whoops, slacker.

A couple weekends ago, I went to Esparto, CA with my mom, brother, Erin, and Evan to the Almond Festival. There were rides, ponies, the Fire Department was selling tri-tip sandwiches (sooooo good), and there were many many free samples of things to eat and read. I had a lot of almonds. Flavored and covered in chocolate. Also snipped off pieces of the most gigantic licorice I’ve ever seen in my life. I wish I had bought some but it was expensive. There was even a library book sale. Basically it was a massive success.

And after Fest’ing it up, we went over to Creekside Ranch to see all the baby sheeps. Baby sheeps! Evan and I were in heaven. We got to bottle feed a bummer lamb!

So adorable. There are more pictures of the day here.

Last night I had a Sushi Sunday party here at my house-sitting location. It’s been a long time since I gorged on home-made sushi. It was just as delicious as I remembered it being. I also made crab meat/cream cheese puffs which were incredible. Sadly we ate all of them before I remembered I had a camera. After dinner we played this gorgeous (but kind of vicious) pirate board game.

More pictures of last night here.

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‘Prammed’ is a good made up word

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Besides cousin hijinks with bus-boys in Portland, I also baby-sat my pseudo nieces one day. I call them my nieces but it’s not really accurate. I guess actually they are like second cousins or something? But that is lame. They are tiny adorable girls and I want nieces, (even though I keep typing ‘nieves’), so nieces they shall be.

While baby-sitting we took out the stroller and prammed our way into town to the ice cream parlour. Possibly one could call it a ‘shoppe’. Bella immediately chose strawberry ice cream as her favorite. I pondered the menu for a while but eventually chose chocolate chip cookie dough. Aunt Mary had something with a ridiculous name. Hugs Mugs? That wasn’t it. And obviously Ali ordered nothing as she is too young for ice cream (also, recognizable speech). When our desserts came, Bella asked to try mine and my jealous guarding nature hunched me up over the bowl and growled at her like an animal. Not really. But…sort of.

I did give her a taste. Maybe not graciously, but I did it. I could see her little eyes light up at this introduction to actual delicious flavor. Not that strawberry isn’t yummy, but come on: Strawberry? It doesn’t have chunks of cookie dough in it, does it now?

She asked for another taste. It’s hard to resist her face.

(picture from Christmas. More pictures here.)

I let her have another small bite. But then I quickly devoured the rest so she couldn’t have any more.

Yeah. I did that. I barely had time to enjoy it myself! All because I am ridiculously unwilling to share my scrumptious treats with cutie patootie three year old second cousins. Mine mine mine!

Later I considered how some day some one will fall in love with me because they find this trait of ice cream possessiveness endearing. And I wrote a scene in my head of how that might go. Since the possibility of this actually happening seems remote I might have to use it in a romance novel someday. Maybe I can substitute Gunter’s Ices (yes, I’m contemplating a historical) for actual ice cream. Ices. Heh. Probably I would share that.

…Probably.

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Cousins

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In Oregon this weekend, my family and I kidnapped my teenage cousin, Lacey, for a day in Portland at Powell’s. While there we hit up the Deschutes Brewery for some snacks and drinks (it’s like 3 blocks from the Land ‘O Books). Lacey spied a cute busser and proceeded to tell me how adorable he was ad nauseum. I stared at him politely for her sake. He did have a nice body. James (other cousin) took a different tack.

James: You think he’s cute?

Lacey: Yeah.

James: Maybe you should tell him so.

Me: What?

James: And take your picture with him.

Me: WHAT?

Lacey: Maybe I will.

Me: (whimper)

2 minutes later of James being a goading terror.

Lacey: Michele, can I borrow your phone?

Me: Seriously!?!

lacey and brew boy.jpg

I can admit that my 16 year old cousin is much braver than me. And cunning with the artful lies to convince a stranger to take his picture with her.

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Girls

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I remember back in the day when I was just entering into my teenage years of angst that the thought of additional girls to my maternal extended family was enough to drive me into a rage of epic proportions. I liked being the only one; I craved being special. Some of this could be blamed on hormones, but mostly it was my extreme hatred for anything new that would change my established routine and experience. Now that I’m older (and wiser) I’ve come to see that girls are GREAT. What’s not to love when new additions to the family included Katherine, Lacey, and Isabella?

And soon now (well in March) there will be another girl! A new baby niece to adore and I am so excited. Kudos to John and Katherine for procreating females. Girls rule, boys drool. (Well, really all babies drool at first).

2d_ultrasound(3).jpg

Not Katherine’s fetus.

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taking it to the creek

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some good and bad points of vacationing in oregon.

pro:

7 nights at $170 per person

con:

having to share a room with my mother

pro:

getting to stay in an amazing house

con:

hitting head on abalone shell shelf in shower THREE TIMES

pro:

spending time with family

con:

having 14 year old cousin discover i’m 30 and mock me for it

pro:

pictures!

con:

breaking my camera the 2nd day there

pro:

cake and ice cream for breakfast. the best pro of all.