Thanksgiving'd: Rockets, Capes and family

After a really nice long week in Colorado I am sadly back in Chicago and back to work. We had a fun time. I got in two Fridays ago.

I arrived in Colorado the Friday before thanksgiving. My plane was arriving late - so my brother and his wife Sarah picked me up. We then drove to Burlington to meet up with my parents and relatives at my grandfathers house. We got to Burlington late so I didn’t really get a chance to hang out much - but I did get a chance to see my parents new dog ellie. She is really cute.

Then on Saturday we all got up and hung out. We tasted the Jones’ soda thanksgiving soda and decided it was nasty. I also hooked my grandpa up with a Google apps for domains account for his jimknox.org site. It is so easy. I love it. In the afternoon I my aunt Heide brought her kids over and we hung out. I accompanied them to the Akron vs. Burlington football game. It was a football game. I am glad I am not in high school. So Kile, Kory and I walked back to my grandpa’s house to see what was going on.

Then the cousins and I went to the grocery store to grab some Mentos and diet coke. We got a lot. So much that Kile and Kory were pretty surprised and quite insane while in the store. They kept shouting “OMG. YOU ARE BUYING ALL THE DIET COKE. WHERE WILL THE PEOPLE OF BURLINGTON GET THEIR DIET SODA?” I laughed and bought more. We then bought them out of Mentos. Fifty dollars later we were on our way.

So we gathered everyone up for the big Mentos bottle fountain. We did a couple sets. it was pretty insane, as usual. I love the Mentos diet coke reaction. Always funny. We somehow convinced Kile to get under one of the reactions and get all “popped” up. Pretty funny.

After that we pretty much just chilled out and had a nice thanksgiving dinner. It was pretty funny. The food was excellent and it was nice to see all my cousins and uncles and aunts. The best part was hanging out with my relatives and telling jokes. Their were some good ones. All pretty unique and interesting. Hilarious.

Then everything wound down. Everyone went to bed and I stayed up and finished the Count of Monte Cristo. It was amazing. Right now I LOVE books with counts and countesses. hah. I think I see a War and Peace in my midst.

So then on Sunday - we went back to Greeley. My parents mentioned that they wanted new phones so I convinced them to get Treos from Verizon. I think they really like them. They both really like palms so it was nice to have a phone with a minimal learning curve. The Treo is super fast. Pretty amazing. The one thing I don’t like is how they minimized the hotsync portion. They should have had a conduit that worked with their custom PIM. that would have made more sense for people like my mom who is using a mac. Anyway. we got Treos and hung out. played Treos.

On Tuesday, I went to the dentist. Fun Fun. Then met up with my friends Megan, Mike, Sam and Thom in Denver for a nice vegan dinner. We went to watercourse. It was great. I had a buffalo chicken sandwich (of course with no chicken) and a really good soup. It was really cool to see everyone. I hadn’t seen Thom in years - so that was especially cool. I really think that he is a secret agent working for the government. That would make more sense to me. hah. After dinner we went back to Mike and Sam’s place for a nice hang out/Internet groove time. Great fun. I miss those kids.

On Wednesday I had dinner with my family and then went with Dylan and my Mom to get some fabrics for our capes. It was awesome. We hung out at Joann’s for about 2 hours. just playing around. Then on the way back we were headed to the grocery store and Dylan threw our list out the window. always a joker. hah. So we scratched the grocery store idea, went home. Hung out with my newly arrived grandfather and then made capes and watched movies. hah. fun.

Thursday we had our pseudo-thanksgiving. It was awesome. A really good family friend came over for the day. We had coldcuts, some great cheese, brussel sprouts, chili and some really great smoked fish. A great thanksgiving meal. We hung out and talked. I showed my parents youtube, they loved it. We played scrabble (I think I got second place - my mom owned me). Then I made a rush trip to Walmart to get some radio controlled planes and helicopters. Those really cheap ones. we then flew them. It was pretty funny. After that we watched a movie, made capes and went to bed.

On Friday, Dylan came over and we all made capes. ALL DAY! it was really fun. We made a lot capes. 19. really awesome. My mom was the rockstar. She made the shit out of some capes. Dylan also really rocked out. All I did was cause problems and then embroidered a bunch of stuff. It was petty cool.

Then on Saturday we had the day of days. The reason I came to Colorado. The reason for living. We invited our family friends Wes and Amy to come out to Greeley with their children for a quick fondue date and to shoot rockets. Tom and his brother Joe and Joe’s family also came out. We all hung out and then went to our friends alfalfa farm to shoot rockets. It was pretty insane. Tom brought his giant rocket that used F and G engines. We shot it off a bundle of times and generally had a good time. We even made a rocket out of bread. It was awesome. I made a really shoddy movie and posted it. It was really fun. After the rocket day, we came back to my parents house and hung out, ate awesome food, played with kids and just chilled out. It is nice to talk and hang out with great people. I miss them already.

Sunday came too quickly. On Sunday, we had brunch with my brother and Sarah. It was fun. Dylan and I talked about Internet and clowns and did a small amount of juggling. I love juggling with Dylan. So then they left to visit Sarah’s dad and my parents and I ran some errands, went to the bookstore and went and had steaks. My father recommended the Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I love it. Very funny.

I then flew back to Chicago and WORKED! So there we are.