12 Days of Holiday Vacation

Eryn had to write up what she did for her 12 days of holiday vacation, which were really 11 days because the 12th day was today when she went back to school. I was home the entire time, so I got to help her think about what she did (although I'm not going to illustrate it like she had to). Here's what we came up with:

1. Christmas Eve at Lissy Jo's (my sister) with my side of the family. Lots of loud music and a bit of crying about a Lego helicopter because it came apart (go figure). Fondue. Eryn came home with my sister's saxophone. She did not write about the bottle of scotch and wifi detecting t-shirt I got from my Secret Santa.
2. Christmas with my inlaws up in the northern burbs. Santa showed up. Great Grandma Millie made an off colored comment about sitting on Santa's lap. Eryn likes to sing she saw Millie kissing Santa Claus. I won the hold 'em game and donated the money to the Eagan Food Shelf fund we started.
3. Sledding at the local (Rahn) hill. A bit icy, but lots of fun on the little twister sled. My nephews came over later to walk Luna (the dog).
4. Princess and the Frog. Good music, ok movie.
5. Uncle Frankie's for chili fries and Surdyk's to spend my birthday gift certificate (another bottle of scotch I can't drink until I bike more). Avatar. Less music, more movie. We saw it at Riverplace with my inlaws. It was all pretty good for Eryn until the last 20 minutes where there was a little too much up close violence. The real problem was that it was about an hour too long and she was hamming up the little kid aspect for the grandparents. At the end I asked, "Too scary?" Eryn replied, "Yes." I said, "Then we shouldn't do PG-13 movies." Eryn, "Oh no. It wasn't that scary. Just a little bit. I wasn't scared."
6. Daddy-daughter day at The Blast (Eagan indoor playground) and doing experiments with water (previously covered).
7. Tubing at Buck Hill. I can't believe Eryn is scared of roller coasters, because that's much scarier. She didn't go down alone, however. We went down lashed together in the "family lanes" on the far end. The first few times we went on the second to last lane, which was pretty wide and fast, but uneventful. Then we switched to the last lane which was narrower and pushed us around a bit. I don't think I've ever seen such a look of terror on Eryn's face as when she spun into the lead of our two-tube raft. But she was game to go again. And again. And again. Juliet and Simone, we apologize for running you both over. I'm big - my tube is just naturally going to go a bit further. You should stay out of my way (I'm glad no one got hurt). When we were done with our two hours, we hit Ring Mountain for dessert.
8. New Year's preparations. Pooteewheet did a lot of cleaning. Eryn did a lot of dusting and spent a few hours at Morgan's house. I did some heavy moving but otherwise tried to stay out of the way. After 6:00 p.m. New Year's commenced. We lost Matthew and Cynthia and family, but gained Tjandra for the evening. In addition to Ming's family, Dan'l's family, and Kyle, that was a pretty good turnout. I lost right away in hold 'em, but took over Eryn's hand when she got bored. That money was also donated to the Eagan food shelf jar.
9. Eryn stayed in her red pajamas that Grandma Ellen made all day and watched an abnormal amount of So You Think You're Smarter Than a 5th Grader. I laid around as well, although primarily with an upset stomach from New Year's drinking (doh...idiot).
10. Walker Art Center Family Day. We listened to some music by Clementown, whose songs are based on the poetry/books of Calef Brown (who was also there) and toured the exhibits while Eryn drew a few pictures in her sketch pad of those she thought were most interesting. She particularly liked the upside-down-city by Claes Oldenburg and was interested in the glass chunk chandeliers the artist who has the studio next to Grandpa Larry created. Pooteewheet finally got to open her birthday present, a GPS for her car. For our anniversary she'd opened a carrying case for a GPS. And for Christmas she'd opened a stand for a GPS. She had an inkling. We did Christo's for lunch and La Fonda's for dinner, which is an extravagant amount of eating out, but the evening event was to celebrate Pooteewheet's birthday.
11. Breakfast with Ming, his family, his friend, and Kyle at the Capital View Cafe. Lots of delicious tex-mexy breakfast. I went with the chorizo omelet. Eryn devoured a few pancakes and made some drawing of Logan that looked like a millipede. Logan continued to insist that the car park I alluded to owning on New Year's Eve was a myth, despite the multiple trucks I had produced. The rest of the day was catch up. Bills. Homework. Email. And a bit of Dexter season three to round out the weekend.

Lot busier than it seemed. But given how fast the time flew, it makes sense that we were doing something almost every day.