Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Christmas 2015: Family Time

The week after Christmas we had several family activities. We started on Monday afternoon for the long anticipated trip to the theater to see 'Star Wars; The Force Awakens'. It was a good day for a movie because it was pouring rain. The weather channel said that if the amount of rain that fell on Monday had been snow it would have been 45 inches deep. Thank heavens for rain.
I enjoyed the movie. There was a lot of homage to episode 4 (the original Star Wars). It will be interesting to see where the last two episodes take this story.
Monday evening was the renewal of the Trivial Pursuits challenge where Susie and I take on our children. The teams were Susie and ElRay, Maren and Lance, Kyle, Kevin, and Spencer. Over the years the oldest team has controlled this game but Monday evening we were annihilated by Kyle, Kevin and Spencer. They finished up with 6 wedges while we managed to get only one. We will speak no more of this embarrassing defeat.
Tuesday was our big family photo. The original idea was to meet the photographer inside the Student Union building at Purdue University. Unfortunately we arrived at the appointed time to find that the University was closed. We took a couple of family photos outside and then went down the street to an eclectic store called 'Von's' where we took the rest of the pictures. It will be interesting to see how these turn out.
Following the photos we went to Cheddar's for a calorie overload. We started with cheese fries, potato skins, onion rings, and deep fried cheese curds. The kids are getting old enough that it is a pretty tame affair at a restaurant. Then we were off to the Arrowhead Lanes Bowling alley.
Once again I was publicly humiliated when my four grandchildren beat me and Susie tied me. I'm going to claim that my tennis elbow made it difficult to roll a high score. Of course they were on the bumper lane and I was on a regular lane.
Tuesday evening was spent playing video games and visiting. This has been a nice Christmas vacation. I am well rested and ready to return to work.



Random Thoughts from an Urban Entomologist