Phew...Back to the Slave Pits...

Damnit, how did my two week vacation fly by so fast?!! I don't want to go back to work tomorrow!!!

Lacey and Miguel went home yesterday evening. My brother and his wife drove down here to pick them up, and they left right away to head back. Boo! I'm having serious Miguel withdrawals. He just turned six and he's completely adorable, loving and very courteous and sweet!

Sammy and I took the Christmas tree down today, along with all of the Christmas decorations. It's time to move on and start the new year. I'm not super excited about this month coming up. I've gotta head up to St. Paul again next week to defend my master's thesis. We also have the Career's Conference coming up at work in which I am in charge of the Center on Education and Work's booth, along with presenting twice at the conference. My pal Stephen Gresham and I are presenting on cultural diversity. This means a lot of work. I think I'll just be happy once the master's defense is done, for even though I finished the huge project, I've still gotta write one last 10-page paper on why I did what I did. So much fun.

Well, I wanted to share with you some of our great photos of the vacation. If you can remember, I headed up to the Twin Cities area on Saturday the 19th to celebrate my cousin Mindi's 30th birthday. Then I hung out at my bro's for a little over a week. We celebrated Christmas and had a lot of fun, went to see the movie New Moon. I wasn't too thrilled about those Twighlight books after I tried reading one and realized that it was written for 11-year-old girls and not for serious and cool writers such as myself. However, New Moon was quite fun, and I'm not sure if it was because of the half-naked buff men running around or the actual plot. Oh well, I am also a serious and cool adorer of naked men....where was I? Sorry...yes, so I hung out at my brother's house until last Monday. I then brought my 12-year-old sister Lacey and my 6-year-old nephew Miguel home with me to spend some time. We hung out, did some arts and crafts, blah blah blah.

So here are the random photos of the vacation that I haven't shown you yet...

Here is Manny, my 5-year-old nephew, playing with a Nintendo DS. Notice the extreme look of concentration on his face:



Oh, and I got beat up by my brother's couch. Stay away from it, it's very testy and hates being sat on too fast. See my sweet bruise?



We went to go and visit my best pal Yobe before we left. Here's a pic of her cute baby girl Emma...



And last but not least, here is our buddy Miguel, posing with his wonderful artwork. How creative buddy!



All the meanwhile, Mr. Sam stayed back in Milton and had to pull a few extra long shifts for the heavy snow fall over Christmas. He went out with his pals on New Year's Eve, but I stayed home because of some random cold that I caught. I was able to take some of his allergy medicine and they cleared me up quick, but also knocked me out! I'm over it now, thank the Lord! Sam was able to get in some ice fishing and last minute hunting. I actually went out ice fishing with him this week with Miguel. It was Miguel's first time ice fishing. We didn't catch anything, and the ice was super slippy, Miguel and I fell about 20 times each. It was quite hilarious. Sam was able to get out and go hunting today, as today was the last day for hunting. He did not get a deer this year, but he was able to see a few. I think there were some loud people and dogs walking around his hunting land that scared the deer away. No worries though, the deer that he shot last year is now sitting gracefully on our spare bed, waiting to be placed on the wall. We also have another freshly done walleye hung up in the other room. I actually like those walleye more than the deer. I'd take a picture and post it here, but I think the only people who read this blog are Sam's mom, dad and Gina who probably don't care too much about seeing plastic fish.

That's it for now. I'm dreading heading back to work tomorrow. Stupid work. I hate you.