We wake up late (about 9:30 or 10:00) due to what happens at the end of the day and wander upstairs to rouse Carl from his futon/living room bed. Paul usually sits in front of the TV/computer and does his daily internet searches while Keith makes us all an espresso. We then take our bowls of cereal (or eggs or pancakes if someone got ambitious) to the couches while a round or two of Far Cry* is played. Then the boys move out to the garage and work on the van, I stay in and clean up the kitchen and then wander out to see if I can help. When I get bored of trying to help (or get too cold), I might head in and fix lunch or do some drywall work for Paul, or go for a walk. Then it's everybody in for lunch and a "Far Cry break". Back to the garage, or to the parts store, or even more exciting....a test drive around the block. Then I make dinner, and they all come back in and we eat. After which, maybe we'll watch a TV show or two to appease me, then it's back to Far Cry. They are playing it now, and they swear they've almost got it licked. Yeah, right. One night I had to come upstairs and retrieve Keith at 3:00AM! Thus, the waking up late. Unfortunately for me, Heidi, Paul's girlfriend, and Tory, Carl's fiance spent the holidays with their respective families, leaving me as the sole female to nag/gripe/complain/make fun of the vast amounts of time spent on the game.
*Far Cry is the video game of the year. See, the Bauers don't have many traditions, but almost every year during Christmas a new video game is purchased (or in the old days, given as a gift), and large portions of the remaining holiday are spent mastering the game. They are inevitably long, convoluted games with ever-thickening plots that therefore take FOREVER to finish. It becomes a bit of a sickness/obsession with the younger males of the family.
A typical scene around the 'center of the living room universe':
Carl and I got out for a short bike ride from Paul's. Paul gets to look at these mountains every single day.
Progress on the van is going well. Paul and Keith are doing an excellent job troubleshooting some minor problems, but of course in the process find a few more things wrong. Today was a milestone, in that we drove down to the emissions office for the big exam. We failed. So close. We did pass the safety inspection which we were a bit worried about due to a temperamental fuse, but the actual emissions part was a no go. We have two more tries to get it fixed, or else we have to pay again.
Are they happy to be in that ice box of a garage? Hard to tell. Keith did have a good idea in aiming the heaters at a row of tools. The hardest part about working on the car is lying on cold pavement and handling cold tools. Have I mentioned it is cold here?
It's out of the garage and the top is popped! Our home for the next 3 months or so.
Christmas was nice. Gift giving for us has gotten pretty low key. Pretty much nonexistent this year except for a few cute things my mom sent us. I cooked a yummy turkey dinner for Christmas Eve and we shared it with a friend and co-worker of Paul's, Jake, which was followed by, of course, some more "Far Cry". They were excited to have Jake here because he is in the Army and he could tell them all about the different kinds of guns they were using in their game. Great.
It's always exciting to get a Burts Bees product!
I am trying a new feature with the blog now. Video! The easiest way was to use the ever popular You Tube as my medium. Here are some not so interesting videos.
Typical fun for us (well, mostly my brothers) has been things like building rockets out of 2 liter pop bottles and lighting things on fire. This year it was fire:
Ahhhh....Far Cry.....
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