2009!!!!!!

All right! 2009 is here  2008 is gone.  We can change our lives in 2009!  It’s a new year after all.  I mean, if you wanted to change your life in September of 2008 you couldn’t, because the year was more than half done.  Even if you worked really hard at doing something really impressive, like, um, stopping drinking Coke (good heavens!  Like I would EVER do that) you still wasted the first 8 months of the year satisfying yourself with the carbonated, happyness beverage known as Coca-Cola.

So for those of you on Facebook who noticed my wife’s status today, yes, we’re not huge holidayers.  (Again, it’s a word if I can use it successfully in a sentence.)  For those not doing the Facebook thing:

1. Why not?  Everyone else is.

2. The status is a little one line statement a person writes about themselves to tell all of their “friends” what they are doing, feeling or excited about at that moment.  (note: their friends on Facebook usually consists of a massive group of people ranging from their 3rd grade crush to some guy they met on the bus who didn’t like their toque)

Man, I can really get distracted!  Who’s in charge here anyways?  Obviously the little gerbil on a spinning wheel that keeps my brain going fell off for a second there.  But as always, it’s my fault. Afterall, I haven’t had a Coke in about four hours…

Um.  Shoot.  Sorry about that.  Have you ever gotten distracted during your trip down a bunny trail?  Because I do it all the time.  It gets really frustrating sometimes, especially when I’m doing a training presentation at work about the AMAZING system known as Shaw Digital Phone and we end up talking about the differences between corn and flour tortillas.

Did it again.  Sorry.  Did I mention I haven’t had enough Coke today?  And everyone knows a fresh corn tortilla will make a flour tortilla’s mom cry.

Michelle’s Facebook status, right.  It read “Michelle kept her 7 year streak alive of going to bed before 11PM on New Year’s Eve.”  And it’s true.  Ever since Y2K (remember that let down?) we have been going to bed early.  Seriously.  December 31, 1999 was supposed to be the big one and nothing happened.  One second it was 11:59:59 and we were all hugging each other waiting for the nuclear bombs to start dropping (ignoring the fact that Australia and China had already had their clocks turn over 12 hours earlier with nothing more than a dud of a firework.  I hate when that happens) and then the next moment it is 00:00:00 on January 1, 2000 and nothing has changed.  The TV worked.  The coffee maker worked.  The Coke machine still worked (thankfully).

So ya, we don’t get too excited over the day.  If someone invited us over to play Guitar Hero for the night (which by the way, Michelle and I beat this week.  And may actually be the first Nintendo game I have EVER beaten.  Didn’t even beat Super Mario Bros 1) and provided free or even cheap baby sitting we’d be there.  Immediately.  And we’d do the countdown and cheer for a moment when the clock turned over.  But we’d be the first ones to say, “all right, enough messing around.  I’m about to get 98% notes hit and a 153 note streak on Slow Ride”.

But we did have fun this last week.  Which was the actual point of this blog entry; to give a nice summary of the highlights of this week.  But now that I am 564 words into it (have I ever mentioned I get wordy?), it’s gonna have to be a highlights of the highlights summary.  I would bet money that you have never experienced one of those before…

First, every good story needs a soundtrack.  The Mexican Holiday soundtrack sounds like this:

BOOM!

Fireworks are cheap, easy to find and almost a religion down here.  The cracks, booms and fizzzzzzzz-snaps have not stopped since last week.  So while I am describing the weeks events please stop every 30 seconds and yell “Boom!”.

The people at work won’t think you’re odd.  Seriously, I do it all the time.  Just ask my buddy Steve.  He knows I’m insane.

Christmas Eve – Boom!  (just checking if you remembered).  Actually, boom was the theme of the night.  Earlier that day someone, not mentioning who but if you asked Michelle she’d tell you it was the tall, skinny man she’s loved for over 10 years now, bought 120 pesos worth of fireworks at a stand in the Tlaxiaco centro.  And giggled about it.  Then that night us, the Windhams and the Haynes all went over to our neighbours house for tamales (yummy) and whatever it was that Joni made.  Michelle describes the name as “some italian word” and that’s as close as I can get too.  It’s the pizza that’s got the toppings on the inside and the crust outside.  Insida-outta pizza.

Food was good.  Then we started lighting of fireworks.  For an hour.  My 120 pesos worth went fast, loud and fun.  That was the appetizer.  Then the Mexicans brought out theirs.  And we got a little crazy.  Instead of throwing one in the air, we’d (mostly me, they kept handing big wads of them to me so what was I to do?) throw 20 in the air and all laugh as flaming explosives fell among us.  Then the kids got brave and started lighting them while their fathers cheered.  To sum it up, I’d like to quote one of the mothers:

“If this was back home there is no way we would have allowed this to happen.”

Good times.

BOOM!

Christmas Day – The neighbour family that we visited the night before came to the base for Christmas dinner.  Good food, good friends, good times.  Can’t remember us lighting fireworks at that moment.  But they were going off early that morning.

Oh ya, the kids had fun Christmas morning opening the few presents.  Instead of wrapping paper we hid the presents around our kitchen/living room area.  Then we had pancakes.

New Years Eve – I fell asleep early (talked about earlier so this is not a surprise to you) but I fell asleep to the sweet, sultry sounds of

BOOM!

Oh ya, and the Flames beat the Oilers too.  There was some taffy pulling that the kids participated in (why don’t we do this in Canada?) and some extreme (ping)pong.  And more fireworks.

New Years Day – Woke up late because the kids slept in.  Then walked outside and got invited over for brunch at the same neighbour’s house.  Pozole today.  And again, yummy.  Honestly, Canadian food is boring compared to the stuff down here.  I’m going to miss the various moles (pronounced MO-lay) and mystery meats that swim in them.  We played some Mario Kart Wii and then decided to go into town to find a place to eat.  Except that EVERYTHING was closed.  That never happens here.  But apparently New Years Day is the one day that people close their stores.  Except for Davi’s Pizza.  They were open.  So we had pizza for supper and then bathed the kids for the first time in a week and sent them to bed.  And that was our holiday week.

BOOM!

/RD

(Michelle just remembered that the inny-outty pizza is called stromboli)