okay, so christmas break. the day after my lovely christmas greeting to you all, the readers, my charming and extremely athletic aunt came to visit with her son. there was a slightly different feeling to the time we spent with her this christmas... if you remember i told you a couple months ago that she and her family lost their home to the SoCal wildfires in october/november. they are still sans a home of their own, and will be for quite some time until a new one is built. i think the graveness of that situation made everyone a little more aware of how precious life and families are, and thus there were more family dinners and get togethers with my aunt and cousin than i think is usually the case.

the weekend following christmas, sarah goo and i went up to wisconsin to see our lovely musical friends, matty and mike. we watched matt play at a smoky little bar in dowtown eau claire, and then ventured back to mike's house for a 4:00 am game of killer bunnies. heck yeah. if you don't know what i'm talking about, you need to. check it out.

a few days later, i celebrated new years eve with two of my favorite girls, jeanna and helen. the occasion? well new years eve of course, but more exciting, it was jeanna's bachelorette party. we made her wear a visor/veil identifying her as a "bride-to-be", as well as a handmade sash declaring it "girl's last night out." everywhere we went we got VIP treatment because of jeanna's gear. we decided every outing should be marked as a bachelorette party. i mean as long as one of us isn't married, it's not lying, right?

so now we come to big event of the break. jeanna's wedding. saturday. the rehearsal dinner was the night before, and following it helen and i had a freaking hilarious trip to super walmart in search of decorative glitter. i think the walmart employees thought we were drunk or high or something... tee hee. anyway, at the wedding, i had the great privilege of being the maid of honor, as well as one of the musicians. i must say it was a fantastic day. jeanna looked absolutely gorgeous, the ceremony and music went off without a hitch, and most of the guests seemed to really enjoy themselves, even though there was talk of an impending snow storm. the happy couple are now enjoying the warmth of cancuun, and will return to the bone-chilling state of IL on sunday. wheeee!

okay folks, that's about it. except that on sunday helen and i drove through a scary scary snow storm. but we made it, and i already told you about that, so i'm done.