(34) Meridian, Mississippi

Wedesday, January 21st: Today was the longest drive we have done on either leg of the tour. We drove 588 miles(7412 total miles) from Fenton, MO, through the Eastern edge of Arkansas, around Memphis, TN and into Mississippi. We ended the day in Meridian, MS which is in the South Eastern corner of the state. It took Rudy and I 10 ½ hour to drive the distance, including our lunch and gas stop. Caroline, Jeffrey, Jill and I went to dinner at the Cresent City Grill, which was suggested to us by the front desk people. It was very good food, and the service was humorous. Jeffrey kept saying “Don’t mind us, we’re from the North.” Our server turned to us the first time and said “Oh, I understand, my girlfriends from Tennessee.” Who knew that Tennessee was in the North! At one point I said “YOU’RE from the North, the rest of us are from the West!” (Caroline and Jill are from Colorado.) This was the first time that I’ve really been in the South so it was quite an experience. That southern accent on everything made for a bit of humor with everything.
Thursday, January 22nd: I spent the entire day in my room making phone calls. At 5:00pm we left for the venue and knew that this was going to be a very interesting load in. First of all, we had to fit everything up a 10’x14’ freight elevator (we have a couple of pieces that are longer than that.) We also knew that it was going to be an all volunteer crew which means we have no idea what the skill level is but it’s never that good. Everything took a very long time and lots of effort on our part to explain what we were doing and do it correctly. I also tried to do some touch up painting and found that my paint had dried out, I guess from freezing in the cold and then separating the pigment from the water, but it was unusable. Finally, a load in that should have only taken a 3 ½ to 4 hours took almost the whole 5 hours and was very frustrating.
Friday, January 23rd: We had two shows today at 9:30am(52) and 12:00noon(53). After load in, Jill and I went looking for post cards as a local bookstore but didn’t find any. Then we went to a restaurant called Faraway Place in the next town over called Marion, MS. It was a trailer with a front porch and very exotic décor on the inside. We got there around 5:00pm and were the only ones there. The woman who owned the restaurant sat us and started talking us up. She was very nice and knew that we weren’t from around here. She was also curious who had sent us, because they apparently don’t get new customers that often. The food was REALLY good, some of the best Thai food that I have ever had without a doubt. Afterwards, we went to Wal-Mart for post cards. This Wal-Mart was the epitome of your stereotypical Southern back country Wal-Mart. As we were walking in, there were three people in front of us who walked in the Exit and two other people who were walking out the Entrance. Jill and I, of course, walked in the Entrance, but it was truly baffling to watch. That night, Michelle and I had a compy date and then Carolyn had some people over to watch more “Lost” episodes. On a side note, yesterday and today’s hi temperature was around 65 degrees and absolutely beautiful. It’s amazing to know that in the last 10 days we’ve seen a 110 degree temperature difference!

(33) Springfield, IL

Monday, January 19th: Martin Luther King Day. We left Galesburg, IL around 12:00noon and drove 123 miles(6710 total miles) to Springfield, IL. I was really excited to be in Springfield the day before and the day of the inauguration and was a little mad to find out that our hotel was nowhere near downtown and the performance venue was even farther away! How impressive would that have been to see the crowds in downtown Springfield, where Barack Obama declared his intention to run for President, on the day he is inaugurated. We got to our hotel before our rooms were ready so we went out to pick up some lunch. That evening we had a load in at the Sangamon Auditorium on the campus of the University of Illinois-Springfield. Everything went well and the local crew was very nice. After load in, we went to the Steak and Shake restaurant, which was across the street from the hotel. It was a delicious meal of cheeseburgers, fries and milk shakes.
Tuesday, January 20th: INAUGURATION DAY! At breakfast, we watched all the coverage of DC. A fair number of people in the company live in the DC area and everyone was giving stories about people they knew who were dealing with the 3 million people packing into the capitol today. We had our 50th performance this morning at 10:00am. As soon as the show came down, around 11:15am, the performers all gathered in one of the dressing rooms to watch the end of Obama’s inauguration speech. We had a tech meeting but had decided to watch video of the event that night when we got to our hotel. We had a 12:30pm(51) show and then load out. The venue had given us coupons for lunch in their cafeteria, so the cast went and got us food as well. We were really happy about that and it was very nice of them. Eric and I drove the 114 miles(6824 total miles) to Fenton, MO which is just south of Saint Louis. On the way down, the snow vanished and the temperature was almost to freezing, which for us is pretty warm! We had a beautiful view of the Arch and downtown Saint Louis on the way in. We were staying in a Towne Place by Marriott and each had a studio apartment with a full kitchen. Carolyn decided to make a dinner of chicken and pasta for who ever wanted it which was very nice of her. We sat around and rewatched Obama’s entire inauguration and speech. It is so impressive to see history like that being made. This is absolutely one of the most historical events of my life and I am so proud to say that I voted for him. Then we proceeded to watch two more episodes of “Lost” before heading back to my room for the night.

(32) Drive to Galesburg, Illinois

Saturday, January 17^th: I walked outside this morning to put my bags in the van and immediately I felt something wrong. I was only wearing a hoodie and a long sleeve shirt and I wasn’t freezing! The temperature must have risen into the single digits because it felt almost like a summer breeze outside. There was a hockey team staying at the hotel we were in so when I went to have breakfast the entire lobby was filled with small kids, large bags and really talkative parents. Today was my first day riding in the Red van as opposed to driving the truck. We started our drive out from St. Cloud and the roads weren’t too bad. Kevin was driving and I was navigating for him. For the whole time, Kevin was teaching me all about his music choices from Beyonce to Michael Jackson to Diana Ross to really random stuff like Aerosmith. It was quite shocking because I assumed that we’d be listening mostly to classical music and operas, but it was a lot of fun regardless. Lindsay took over driving, with Dave as her navigator, and the road conditions slowly deteriorated. We passed into Iowa and were seeing huge wind gusts that were blowing snow all over the road. After she drove, Caroline took over, with Jeffery navigating, and the road conditions got even worse. We saw a number of cars and trucks that had slid off the road days before and hadn’t been pulled out yet. As we kept driving, we starting hitting traffic jams from cars that had just that afternoon or evening slid off the road. There were still police on the scene and even a tow truck or two. Through the rest of the drive we saw about two dozen of these types of car accidents and 3-4 similar truck accidents. It was fairly nerve racking but we all kept our cool and continued to drive on. Around 5:30pm we stopped again and I took over driving. I was making good time as we had about 140 miles to go. It looked like we’d get in around 8:00pm. We made it through the rest of Iowa and into Illinois. Right after crossing the border, we came upon the I-74 interchange that we would take to Galesburg. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention and went the wrong direction on I-74, taking us a good 20 miles or more out of our way. We were about 3 miles down the road when a suggestion was made to turn around in one of the emergency turn arounds. I though about it for a bit and then saw one coming. There were no other cars to be seen, so I decided to go for it! With no problem, we turned around and were headed in the correct direction and made it to the hotel, after driving 499 miles(6587 total miles), by 8:15pm. Boy was it a long day to say the least. Everyone else was already at the hotel and had gone to get food, so a few of us went over to the local grocery store for dinner. We watched a couple more episodes of “Lost” and then some of us played a couple of hours of poker. This time I did much better and had a lot of good hands. I ended up winning the night with $9. Rudy came in second with $7, Dave with $5, Carolyn with $4 and Eric lost everthing. It was 2:00am and I wasn’t tired, but everyone else was so we called it a night.

Sunday, January 18^th: DAY OFF! This was our first official day off in 12 days. I had a relaxing morning watching the morning news shows and having breakfast. I then went down to the hot tub and sat there for a bit. Caroline and I went into “downtown” to get some coffee from a local coffee shop. I slept the afternoon away while pretending to watch the NFL playoffs. Around 4:30pm, a group of us went down to Crappy’s Bar and Restaurant, to meet up with the die-hard football fans, for dinner and some football. The food was ok and it was nice to be out for a bit. When we left the bar it was snowing outside and was very pretty! After everyone was back from the bar, we watch another couple of episodes of “Lost” to top off the evening.

(31) Eau Claire, WI and Collegeville, MN

Wednesday, January 14th: We woke up this morning to -25 wind chill temperature. I spent the morning inside the hotel, where it was warm, trying to make phone calls and do paperwork. I walked over to McDonalds, which was right next door, for lunch and on the way back, I stepped into the hotel parking lot, slipped and fell flat on my butt. It was pretty embarrassing but luckily no one was around to see it! At the venue, we had to park in an alley way between the theater and a Gospel Mission Shelter to unload the truck. It was snow covered and a little icey. When I stepped out of the truck, I immediately fell again on my butt. We left the truck running while we unloaded in very cold weather. As we were going through load in, we were getting word that some of the schools planning to attend the show the next morning were closing because it was suppose to be -45 wind chill temperature. That meant they wouldn’t be coming to the show. Our audience was quickly dwindling but we knew there were a handful of homeschooled kids that were most likely coming. There was talk that we might cancel the show, which would mean we set up the show for naught, because the venue didn’t want to put on a show for less than about 20 people. The TD of the venue had a list of the schools coming and was slowly crossing the names off the lift. Unfortunately, we just had to wait until the morning before we could actually cancel the show. We left the venue at around 10:00pm and it was quite frigid outside.

Thursday, January 15th: We pack into the vans and headed to the venue in the -40 wind chill temperature. When we got the venue, the loading doors were locked. Eric and I walked around the building to find another entrance and just in that time, my nose hairs froze and some of the water in my water bottle froze as well. On the news they were saying it only takes a few minutes to get frost bite in weather that cold. Once inside, we found out that we’d have about 35 people for the show. It wasn’t the smallest house that we’ve ever had, but it was a little sad. We had our 10:00am(47) show and immediately started load out. After load out, Eric and I hopped in the truck and drove 178 miles(6088 total miles) to Collegeville, MN. We had to stop at one weight station on the way. Normally we just roll through and we’re on our way. But this time we pulled onto the scales and just sat there. After a minute, a trooper came out and asked for our log books, where we document all the hours we work and drive. He asked about some of the hours we had worked, told us our DOT placard on the truck were too small and sent us on our way. We take so much time to keep our log books up to date and accurate that it’s nice to have them checked every once in a while. Once we arrived at out hotel in St. Cloud, MN, we had an hour or so before having to leave for a load in at St. John’s College. Luckily, it was only in the -30 wind chill temperature when we started load in. The college didn’t have a loading dock, but they did have a very tall set of stairs that we backed the truck up to. They had a long ramp that went from the top of the stairs to the bed of the truck. It was by far the most interesting loading situation that we’ve seen so far. The students had all done it before so they were very good at being careful with our scenery and good at pushing our heavy boxes up the ramp. Load in went well and we were back at the hotel before 11:00pm which was great.

Friday, January 16th: We had two shows at 9:45am(48) and 11:45am(49). After load out, I had a quick lunch before heading out to the Mall of America with Carolyn, Dave, Eric and Lindsay. It took about 1:45 to drive to Minneapolis, which is where the Mall is. Dave was meeting up with a friend from college and Lindsay and I ended up splitting off from Carolyn and Eric to walk around the mall. The Mall of America is a funny thing. It’s a mall with the same stores as every other mall in the country. But it’s huge with 4 floors and a Nickelodeon themed amusement park in the middle, a miniature golf course and an aquarium in the basement. Lindsay and I walked the entire mall going into random shops here and there. We went to Lego Land and played with the legos, America Girl, where Lindsay gave me the short history of the American Girl book series, The Dollar Store, a bead store, the gift shop, an antique shop and we got smoothies and soft pretzels for dinner. It was a lot of fun and about 3 hours later we packed up and drove back to St. Cloud.

(30) Appleton

Sunday, January 11^th: This morning I watch my Sunday morning news shows(This Week w/George Stephanopolous and Meet The Press with David Gregory) and did a little bit of paperwork. I took 30 minutes out of my morning to turn the truck on and let it run knowing that we hadn’t plugged it in that night and I knew that we’d be driving it to the venue that afternoon. We left just after lunch for load in at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center. At load in, I had enough extra time to do some touch up painting, which Jill coached me on. I remember a little bit from my rendering class in college and my time in the paint shop, but not that much. Regardless, my painting turned out so good you can’t even tell that the pieces were scratched now! That night, I had a compy date with Michelle and watched most of the Golden Globes before falling asleep.

Monday, January 12^th: Breakfast at the hotel as normal. We had one show at 9:30am(46) which went well. The venue was really big and we had lots of extra space which is always nice. Load out went quickly and we were on our way back to the hotel. I had Jill drive the truck, which she had never done before, all the way back to the hotel. She was very nervous, but she did a great job. We made it back in one piece without any problems. Caroline, Rudy and I then went out to Grainger, so I needed to pick up some casters and spring clips, then over to Woodman’s, which is like a local Wal-mart. We were looking for lunch and decided on Perkins. When we walked in, we saw Eric and Jill sitting at a booth having lunch so we joined them. After lunch, I made a bunch of phone calls which nobody answered. In the late afternoon, I went to the exercise room to work out. I did cardio and some strength training with my stretchy bands for the first time on the road. Late that night Caroline, Eric, Rudy and I played poker for about two hours. There was a $5 buy in, which I ended up losing all of. Caroline ended the night with $10, Eric with $8 and Rudy with $2. I got three good hands all night, 2 of which were beaten and one of which I won! Luckily, we’ll be playing again later in the tour so I can make that money back.

Tuesday, January 13^th: We drove strait West across the middle of the state along a couple of two lane highways for 205 miles(5910 total miles) from Appleton to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. We saw a number of small towns of 3,000 people or less. Jill and I were in the truck and it was the first time that she drove the truck on the highway. She did a very good job and we made it to the WI-21 and I-94 interchange. After arriving in Eau Claire, we had a tech dinner and venue meeting at a restaurant across the street from our hotel. Back at the Hotel, I went down to the hot tub to relax for a bit. I was joined by another hotel guest who was from Minneapolis. We started talking about the -20 degree weather and then got into other stuff. He started telling me about Minneapolis and how it’s quite a booming city. He works for a computer controls electrical engineering company that is based in Santa Barbara. I couldn’t express enough how much I love living in Northern California. We had a great conversation and then I headed back up to my room for the night.

(29) Madison, Wisconsin

Thursday, January 8^th: When I woke up, I went downstairs for breakfast in our very ritzy hotel called the Edgewater. It is almost resort like and sits right on one of the lakes that surround Madison. The restaurant overlooks the lake and it was a gorgeous sunny morning. Out waiter’s name was Shawn and he was a performer at one point in his life. He talked with us a lot and told us about a number of great things to do in Madison. We had a $10 breakfast voucher which went pretty far at the restaurant. I went back upstairs for another work day in the morning. This time I spoke with a number of venues and got a lot accomplished. After the work and lunch, we headed out to our venue for load in. This load in went a little slower than we had expected and our local crew was divided up in a way that we didn’t expect. It took the whole five hours of load in and still needed a little bit of time to put the finishing touches of the show. Back at the hotel, Rudy, Eric and I got some Chinese delivery and played 9 holes of Wii Tiger Woods Golf.

Friday, January 9^th: I had an early breakfast with a few other people on the crew, with Shawn as our waiter again, before setting out to go back to the theater. Eric, Jill, Rudy and I arrived 30 minutes earlier than normal to finish up the details of load in and the cast showed up just as usual for the microphone check. We had two more shows today at 10:00am(43) and 12:30am(44). After the show, Eric, Lindsay, Rudy and I went over the Wisconsin State Capitol building, which was only a couple of blocks from the venue and hotel. We went on a fabulous tour of the building with a fantastic guide who was extremely knowledgeable about Wisconsin history. The Capitol building has to be one of the most beautiful public buildings that I have ever seen. A number of large painting, lots of different marble and granite, and some phenomenal stained glass skylights. Then Lindsay and I went over the Madison Historical Museum and looked around there. They were having an exhibit called “Odd Wisconsin” which focused on a number of strange/funny/eccentric things that happened in the state of Wisconsin. We also looked around at the other historical facts and displays about the last 200 years of Wisconsin history. After that we walked a few blocks down Strait Street, which runs from the Capitol to the University of Wisconsin, then cut back over to our hotel. That night was all about relaxing, talking to Michelle, watching TV and going to bed at a reasonable time.

Saturday, January 10^th: We had the morning off so I took the time to pack up my bags. We left the hotel and headed to the venue for our last performance at 2:00pm(45) at the Overture Center. When I got there, I plugged the truck in to warm up the gas(which had probably frozen overnight.) We’ve been trying to do this as much as possible because it helps the truck start up easier. Our performance went over well and we rolled through strike without any problems. When we started to pack the truck, I realized that our lift gate(which runs off the battery) was running a little slow. Rudy had already turned the truck on once since we started load out and it turned on fine. This time however, He tried to turn it on and it was obvious that the battery was too low to turn the engine. I told Caroline to call Ryder and tell them we killed the battery and we continued the truck pack with a ramp that the venue had. We used the lift gate for one other piece because there would have been no other way to get it up into the truck. About 15 minutes after we finished packing the truck, a road-side service pick-up truck pulled up. The guy jumped out, plugged the jumpers into his truck, clipped them onto our truck battery and had me turn the key. With one turn, the truck went on. We let it run for about 45 minutes while we went and got a slice of pizza. It was a good lesion never to use the lift gate with a cold battery. Then we set off on our 118 mile(5705 total miles) drive to Appleton, Wisconsin. After we got the hotel, Caroline, Jeffrey, Jill and I had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse, which was right next to our hotel.

(28) Wausau, WI

Monday, January 5th: Today was a day off in Wausau, Wisconsin. There were lots of small trips planned by different people during the day and I decided to go on all of them! First was a trip to the post office. Lindsey, Dave and I had a fantastic time dealing with a very strong-willed Postal Clerk. She kept yelling “OVER HERE! I CAN TAKE THE NEXT PERSON!” in her loud Wisconsin accent. Then there was a trip to Wal-Mart with the whole tech crew and Jeffrey. We were going to pick up stuff for the cold: wind-shield washer fluid, lock de-icer, etc. We then went to Office Max/Best Buy/The Dollar Store. At the Dollar Store, I bought a bunch of small toys to play with and candy to eat. After that, Caroline, Jeffrey and I went down to the mall which is across the street from the post office that I was at that morning. I walked around the whole mall in about 15 minutes and found a huge book sale, and you all know how I love book sales. Luckily I showed an extreme amount of restraint and only bought one book called “An Idiots Guide to Global Economics.” I know, I know, some nice light reading. After that we walked about 2 blocks to “downtown” Wausau and went to a couple of other small shops before returning to the mall for lunch. Back at the hotel, I relaxed for a bit before working out and watching the Pittsburgh Penguins vs New York Rangers hockey game. Later that night, a bunch of us went bowling because the bowling alley was having one dollar shoes and one dollar games. I bowled a 140 game, a 150 game and a 130 game. I won every game except the last, which I came in second to Eric and that was because I was trying to curve the ball all game.

Tuesday, January 6th: The morning was spent doing paperwork. I called a number of venues but only talked to a few of them. We had a Tech Crew meeting and lunch at Fazoli’s, which is a fast food Italian restaurant, before heading over to the venue for our first load in of this leg. The venue was nice and load in went very well. It was very funny to really unpack everything for the first time since the end of November. Unfortunately, the temperature had been below freezing, and in the negative temperatures at night, for the last couple of days. This caused a number of things to be frozen or very cold. It took almost two hours for the sound computer to warm up. I went to do some paint touch up with the black paint that I had just gotten but my paint was completely frozen! Even the hazer fluid was slush! It was pretty funny and a big eye opener. We knew at that point we’d have to keep a lot more things in the vans as opposed to the truck and bring them in at night to keep them from freezing again. Other than that, the load in went well and we even finished a little early.

Wednesday, January 7th: We woke up bright and early for our first performance of this leg of the tour. We had a 10:00am(41) show and an 1:00pm(42) show. Both went over ok with only minor problems. Between the shows, most of the company went to lunch at this restaurant call Erbert’s and Gerbert’s Clubs and Subs which is a great deli sandwich shop. Load out also went well; smooth with only some minor trips. It took extra time to remember where our ratchet straps clipped in and what we were strapping where. The day was very humorous because the whole company was trying to scrub the rust off. We remembered how everything worked, but we couldn’t remember all the details. Luckily it wasn’t too hard to brush the cobwebs out of our minds. Once we were all packed up, we hopped in the vehicles and drove 149 miles (5587 total miles) to Madison, WI.

(27) Back to Work

Thursday, January 1st: HAPPY NEW YEARS! This year started off really quickly with a New Years Day flight back to DC for the second leg of the tour. I left around 12:40pm Pacific Time from San Jose and flew to Chicago-O’Hare airport. I sat next to a very nice Polish girl. On our take off from San Jose, we flew up through the low cloud cover and could see all the surrounding mountain tops. It was like a field of perfect snow with a couple of small brown hills; what a beautiful sight. I had a two hour layover in Chicago where I called Stephanie and play a nice game of catch up. From Chicago I flew straight to DC, which is only about 1 hour and 40 minutes in the air. On the take off I could see the Hockey rink in Wrigley field from the annual outdoor game, this year played between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Redwings. I landed in DC at 11:30pm Eastern Time and was picked up by Wes and Caroline, who I went to college with. They took me back to my hotel and dropped me off. It was 12:30 and I wasn’t tired at all. I laid down in bed but didn’t really fall asleep until 1:30am.

Friday, January 2nd: I woke up at 7:00am Eastern Time and felt quite exhausted. I got ready and went downstairs for the complimentary continental breakfast. Minutes after I sat down, Rudy and Jill walked in for breakfast. Then Eric joined us and finally Caroline. It was very nice to see everyone. We had good breakfast conversation and then walked down to the Kennedy Center. It was a long day of work getting everything ready to got back out on the road. We repacked the tool box and sorted through a lot of the props. The performers came in and had a refresher run through of the show, which was very funny, and then had a short rehearsal with Tim, Karma and Derek. The crew continue to pack stuff and then to repack the truck. At the end of the day we had a meeting with the crew, David Paige, David Kilpatrick and Jen Howard. We did a little more paperwork and then called it a day. On top of all this, the Tech Crew for the other show, “Blue’s Journey” was also there getting ready to go out on the road. It was a good chance for everyone to talk about how things have been going and help the new crew get a better footing on their tour. After work, Jeffrey, who is in our cast, had a cocktail party and then we went to a bar right next to the hotel we were staying in called the 51st State. When we got there, the “Blues Journey” crew was already there so we joined them for some drinks. Just after 10:00pm, I decided it was time for me to head to bed. I said my goodnights and went off to the hotel. When I got back I couldn’t quite fall asleep so I did some work on my computer then took a shower. When I went to pull out my new shampoo, I realized that it had spilled all over the bag it was in. Luckily it was in a bad with my extra moisturizer and aloe so it wasn’t too bad to clean up. I was finally asleep by 12:00 midnight.

Saturday, January 3rd: Everyone met at the Kennedy Center by 10:00am where we had Dunkin Donuts, bagels and coffee as a send off. Eric and I hopped in the truck and everyone else piled into the vans and we were off on the second leg of our tour. We drove out of DC into Virginia, then Maryland, Pennsylvania and finally into Ohio. After our 541 mile drive(4950 total miles) we landed in Montpelier, Ohio, which is just West of Toledo. At our last truck stop for gas, Eric parked the truck after filling up and noticed that there were handicapped parking spots for trucks. This raises a very good question about why and how handicapped people are driving big rigs. At the Holiday Inn Express that night, I got into the elevator with a family of 4. The doors shut and the father noticed my SF Giants hat. He said “San Francisco huh.” I said “Yep, that’s where I live.” He said “Oh yeah, so do we.” I said “Well actually I live in San Jose.” He said “Yeah, we actually live South of Sacramento, but I grew up in South San Francisco.” That night, I watched the St. Louis Blues beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2 in Hockey.

Sunday, January 4th: We woke up, had breakfast and got back on the road. It was very snowy(but not on the roads) and fairly wet. Most of the hotel parking lot was iced over. For the first half of the day we had some light rain. After we passed through Chicago, we hit some gigantic pot holes that really shook the truck. The drive through the rest of Illinois and Chicago went pretty well and we at the hotel at a reasonable hour. We drove 483 miles(5433 total miles) to Wausau, Wisconsin. A huge group of us went to the Wausau Mine Company for dinner and then to the Country Market, which is a big grocery store, for some cold/cough medicine and food for breakfast.

(26) Thanksgiving to New Years

Here is a short recap of what’s happened since the end of first leg of the tour:

Michelle and I had Thanksgiving with her family in San Jose. We went to her Grandmother’s house where they have a tradition of getting their turkey mashed potatoes and gravy from Harry’s Hoffbrau, a local restaurant. Michelle’s parents, Terri and Jon Carone, were there along with her brothers, Drew and Kenny (who are identical twins), Kenny’s girlfriend Brandy, her Aunt Mary and Uncle Steve and of course Her Grandmother. After the Holiday of Thanksgiving, Michelle and I then had three more “Thanksgiving”-style dinners at her friend Chelsea’s house, at her apartment, and at Kenny’s house with his girlfriend Brandy.

We did a lot of sitting around and watching reruns of the tv show Las Vegas as well as numerous movies and San Jose Sharks Hockey games. Michelle’s family loves Sharks Hockey and somehow I have been sucked in as well! Terri even bought us tickets to the last home game of 2008 and we had AMAZING seats. We also went ice skating at Christmas in the Park in downtown San Jose and went to the batting cages where I took a round in the 71mph cage and did pretty well.

Christmas was an unprecedented first time experience. It was a marathon of events that are tradition in Michelle’s Family. On Christmas Eve, there was a big family dinner at Michelle’s Parent’s house. Present for this dinner was her immediate family and Grandmother along with her Aunt Karen and Uncle Tom, their son, Cole, and their daughter Jessica and her boyfriend Bobby. There was a little bit of a gift exchange between the families and a fantastic dinner. We also played a game called Buzz Word which is a really fun trivia game. That night we slept at Michelle’s Parents and the next morning Michelle woke everyone up at 7:00am, her Grandmother came back over and we sat around the Christmas tree opening presents for almost 3 hours. We did stop twice to have cinnamon buns and a breakfast egg and potato dish. Everyone goes around one at a time and opens gifts so that everyone can see what everyone else got. Then we went across the street to the Craig’s house, who have 4 kids, and gave them presents and hung out for a bit. After returning to the Carone’s house, the Lucken’s, who are close family friends, came over and there was some more present opening. After they left, we relaxed for a few minutes before heading over to the Wells’, who live next door, for even more present opening and some really good egg nog. By the time we were back at the Carone’s house it was almost 3pm. We decided it was time for a nap, so we turned on “A Christmas Story” which was playing for 24 hours straight. Between all of us we watched the whole movie, but everyone was in and out of napping for about 2 hours. We all got dressed, because we were still in pajamas at this point, and played a few more games of buzz word. Dinner was just with Michelle’s immediate family and then we went back to Michelle’s apartment.

The last week I was in San Jose was filled with more dinners, shopping, movies and finally packing to go back on the road. Michelle and I had a quiet New Years at her place where we made dinner, and watched the ball drop.

Overall, it was a very relaxing and enjoyable break. I was very happy that I got to spend so much time with Michelle’s family cause they are a lot of fun and really great people! I will try to put up some picture from the holidays sometime in the next couple of weeks.