Well, it's been over three weeks since my last post, which is wholly intentional. I decided that instead of making 15 or so mildly boring posts over break, I'd just summarize at the end into one big post and include all of the interesting things that happened over break, which brings me here. Tomorrow is the first day of class of my tenth and final semester here at good ol' U of M...well, as an undergrad, at least - I'd jump for joy if I was accepted to the U of M dental school.

Anyhow, I'm going off on a tangent here - back to winter break: I had a fun time this year. Since this break was the longest I've had from school in a year and a half, it was very welcome. It started with me going home and watching the early 90's hit "The Cutting Edge" on TV by myself eating popcorn and sitting in my Dad's Lazy Boy. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of break. I saw Lord of the Rings with my sister and a handful of her friends shortly after I came home which was incredible (and Viggo Mortensen is too hot - and a great actor to boot!). On the 22nd of December, Josh and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary by spending the day in the Windy City (Chicago, for my non-Midwest fan base...do I have a non-Midwest fan base?). We visited Shedd Aquarium (I was, of course, thisclose to tears AGAIN during the dolphin show) and shopped the Magnificent Mile. We had a very fun and romantic day as the weather was near 50 and we got a great parking spot. We were also so proud of ourselves for managing big city public transportation, using the complicated bus system AND taxis, although neither of our families seemed to be too impressed. See, Wanton and me, we're not big city travelers, so this was a small victory for us :)

Christmas soon approached and our family friends from Bloomfield joined us to celebrate. On Christmas Eve, we attended Calgary Church's service, well known in West Michigan for having thousands of lights decorating the interior of the beautiful church, after which we had a huge dinner at home. On Christmas day, we had a nice gift exchange - I got almost everything on my short wish list this year. You seriously know you're getting older when you actually ask for underwear and a nice thesaurus as gifts. Also, for Christmas day dinner, my extended family and Josh went downtown to Degage ministries to make and serve dinner to homeless and needy people in Grand Rapids. My sister recently started volunteering at Degage and suggested our family volunteer on Christmas. For me, it was a very important experience and I'm so glad that we all went together; in addition to interesting conversation, it was a reminder as to how fortunate I truly am in life. We all had little "jobs" during the evening and mine was to take a checkers board around and see if anyone wanted to have a round or just sit and talk. Josh played basketball in the gym, my cousin worked the grill, etc, etc. I know that everyone had a great time. After that, we came home, stuffed ourselves again, and played Cranium, a fantastic game, by the way.

Generally, my time between Christmas and New Year's was spent doing in-between-Christmas-and-New-Year's type things, such as gift returning, cleaning the house, and trying to get in touch with my friends from high school. Also, my Mom gave Josh and John (my sister's boyfriend) tickets for the four of us to the see the broadway musical "Mamma Mia!" as Christmas presents, which we saw during that time. I didn't know if I'd enjoy it very much since I was only familiar with 2 ABBA songs at the time (whose songs the musical is based on), but it was very fun and charming and I now have my new "Best of ABBA" cd spinning non-stop. Finally, New Year's rolled around and my friend Adrienne gathered together a group of us to go out to dinner and then go downtown to two different college-ish bars. We pre-bought our tickets and everything, so it was well organized. We had a good time...it was fun to see some friends that I hadn't seen in a while and meet some new ones that accompanied others . My good friend Michelle and her fiancee Jason came into town from Minnesota, so it was a treat to see them. The next day, they came over and watched the Rose Bowl with Josh and I - let me pause here and wipe a little tear away from my cheek. Although we didn't play our BEST, USC is a tough team to beat and I'm happy we made it this far my senior year. As always, GO BLUE!

Well, I think that's about it...it's been a nice 3 weeks. I wouldn't say that it flew by or that it dragged on, either. I got to spend some time with my sister and my parents, as well as some time by myself. We played some great board games and also did a few new things this year for the holidays that were fun and made all of us feel good. Although I'd like to stay home for a little while longer and be pampered and have incredible meals cooked for me, it feels good to be back in A-squared and also, a little bittersweet that this is my final semester here. I want to make it a good one :) Tomorrow's post will be my look back on 2003 and my resolutions and projections for 2004. Hold on to your seat...it's gonna be a crazy year! For now, my fingers are getting tired and my eyes heavy, so the hay I must hit. Sweet dreams tonight.