Jan 7, 2017

Becca and I slept in and woke up to snow outside and a text from Ryan saying his rehearsal was canceled so we could leave for Vermont earlier. It was already 10:30, but Becca made blueberry pancakes that were amaaaazing! We ate and then spent a little more time together before I had to go and finish packing.

I got to Ryan's at 2 and we headed out slowly onto the snowy roads. We thought it would let up after getting past Philly, but that wasn't the case. It took an hour or more to get to the NJ Turnpike and even then the traffic was hardly moving. Things only got worse as it got darker.

In Connecticut we ended up behind 4 plows blocking the whole road going between 15-25mph at any given time. This lasted for a long time and we stopped at a rest stop to use the bathroom and get away from it. Amazingly as we pulled back onto the highway we got behind 4 more plows. We just had to laugh at how ridiculous that was. Once we got to Massachusetts the roads finally cleared up a little and 7 hours in we finally hit were able to go the speed limit on a road. 10 hours of driving and we arrived at the Econolodge in Brattleboro, Vermont. It was quite a day.

Jan 6, 2017

My mystery day at Memorial would have been as expected; I was getting locations to go to block by block as they did testing. I took a longer lunch during a second block that I got out of and then I had off all of third, so I spent that time watching House and New Girl in a quiet room. It ended up being a pretty easy day.

After I went home and got all my ski stuff together from the shed I came over to Becca's to do yoga day 6 and then play some Donkey Kong Country 2. I forgot that it's harder than the original and we didn't have great success getting too far before we called it a day on games.

We finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which ended up being really good. I like the book better, but the movie was nice. I gave her the little alarm clock with projected stars that I got her and we lay in bed looking at them change color on the ceiling before sleep.

Jan 5, 2017

Very exciting day ahead, so buckle up. It was nice being able to sleep longer after being out late, even if it wasn't the best sleep. I had to be at Silver Run at 10am and I had to cover for one meeting and I was out by 11am. I then had to be at Holly Heights by 1:15pm for the rest. I was done there by 3:15. Not a bad day of work. In between I caught up on episodes of Chance instead of doing errands I should probably have done.

More of the same after work was over. I was tired so I tried to nap with little success. I went to Becca's before she got home from work to start cooking up eggplant parm for when she got home. I was almost done when she walked in, only the slightest bit surprised. We finished up and sat down to eat after a lengthy discourse about what movie to watch. We started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I didn't know featured Tom Hanks. The first half was good, but we stopped so we could do Day 5 yoga and get to bed a little early.

Jan 4, 2017

There was PARCC testing at Memorial today so the schedules were different. First block ended up last 2.5 hours and cutting into my only block off so I ended up with a half hour break to run home and grab lunch quickly. I was in an art class and they had individual work so I was bored sitting at the desk all day. I finished reading 40 Days of Dating pretty early on and then proceeded to browse Reddit and other random websites all day. This is when it would be great to have a computer I could edit on.

I came home for a while after work and Becca left work early so she convinced me to go to Parvin with her and run. I wasn't feeling totally great, but I thought a run would help. I felt sluggish, but I ended up doing an average/slightly faster pace than usual over 3 miles. I did feel better after the run and the weather was pretty nice for it. The cold breeze was coming in over the water when we finished.

We did our day 4 of yoga a little later on and then went to Target for a failed jeans-shopping mission. Undeterred, we went on to The Dolphin for Emo Night, where we felt like were the only people there for the first half hour. Eventually people started coming out onto the dance floor.

Things picked up quickly after "My Friends Over You" came on. There were groups of people dancing for the rest of the night and the set got much better after that point too. It was a lot of fun dancing and singing and watching the walls change color together. After the awkward ending of that horrible Dashboard/Brand New mashup song and Weezer we jumped in the car and I stopped for piping hot fresh pretzels on the way home. It's been way too long since I've gone to the pretzel factory. Something comforting about knowing that place is still there.

Jan 3, 2017

I worked at Memorial covering classes for Child Study Team. It was a pretty easy, basic day with a lot of downtime. I went shopping and to the bank during my break time and made an appointment for the dentist after work. I went and got taken right back. So different from the doctor. This was just the checkup but they made a big deal about the cleaning having to be on a different day for some reason. I don't get it. No cavities though.

I went home and took a proper nap that lasted about two hours. It was really nice. I went to Becca's when I got up and she surprised me with a cheesesteak from Drop Squad. So sweet and so delicious! We did Day 3 of yoga and then decided we should go out for a run.

After some running around to get headphones and things, we hit the road running in the old neighborhood. We took the opposite direction this time and it seemed to work out better. When we got back to the car Becca realized she had dropped the car key somewhere so we went back a little while and found it right where we thought it would be. It was kind of nice to have that extra walk anyway. When we got home we cooked a bunch of quinoa and veggies for the rest of the week, burned some brussel sprouts, and played some Mario Kart until we realized how late it was.

Jan 2, 2017

We slept in nicely and then spent the "morning" cooking all of the things we had in the house to make a breakfast dish and watching Planet Earth while eating. We did day 2 of yoga and then mostly lounged around with the cats into the afternoon, wondering how it had gotten so late already.

Becca had to go to work and I had to go to the doctor for my painful thumb. I was told to be there at 3, I didn't see a doctor until after 4:30. I know it's a cliche about doctor waiting times, but that's seriously ridiculous. Anyway it took 3 minutes and she said it was probably nothing.

I went to Ryan's to play our next challenge: Donkey Kong Country. I felt like this one was anyone's game and after playing a little last night I had a feeling it wasn't going to be mine. I managed to get ahead somewhere in the middle and held my lead to the end. We planned a little of our upcoming ski trip after the game and I headed home for a relatively early bedtime.

Jan 1, 2017

As much as we didn't want to we got out of bed in the morning and went to Union Lake dock for sunrise. By the time we were there we were already happy we came. The sky looked beautiful and the clouds were moving fast. We took some shots on the dock and another photographer showed up so I started talking with him and we used each other in our shots.

This sunrise was much nicer weather-wise than the last one we saw. We stayed until the sun came over the horizon and then stayed a little more just watching the light play on some of the trees along the shore. It was a really great way to start a new year.

We went back to Becca's and did day one of (YouTube) Adriene's 31 Days of Revolution yoga. It was a very easy day indeed; hangover friendly, as she called it. After the light stretching we talked and decided we didn't at all feel like going to the Mummer's in Philly and the weather was too nice to stay in so we headed north to Tyler and stopped at Guru's Indian Buffet on the way. How did I not know this place was here? It was amazing. Such good and plentiful vegan food, really nice staff, and a great price for a weekend buffet. I will definitely be coming back.

We got into it at Tyler and were having a good round for the most part. I threw my disc into the water once, missed the putt at this basket about 5 times, and we had to wait to tee off a few times, but otherwise it was a perfect day for a round. We played the first 18 then took a short rest before heading back for the second 18 holes. Some were more fun than others and halfway through the back we were both feeling like we'd had about enough of trees and throwing into the rough. We pushed on and were happy to have played everything in the end.

We drove home with the beautiful sky behind Philly on 95. I fixed the lag issues on the Wii emulator so I played Aladdin for a short bit then we played Donkey Kong Country for a while until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.