Winter break

My two week winter break at home has been a ton of fun, and really busy. It started off with dancing at Wild West with my sister and her friends the Friday night I flew into town. I love two-stepping in Texas. The next day I saw James Dempsey, Jessica, and Katie when we went to go see a vampire movie called "Let the Right One In," which is a Swedish movie with English subtitles. It's kind of a horror/drama, but more horror I guess. A 12 yr old boy befriends a 12 yr old vampire girl. It was one of those artsy movies, with lots of silent shots from interesting angles. It was really good. On the 22nd I attended another Irish dinner with lots of people- we've done these dinners since senior year of high school! The next day I went with Blair to buy my bridesmaid dress for her wedding (!!!) and we shopped together and caught up. That night I went to the Baker Street Pub in Katy with a bunch of friends, and it was like a high school reunion for Cinco Ranch and Taylor high school. There were so many people there that I hadn't seen or thought about since high school, and it's funny that we're all friends with the same people. Apparently that pub is the place to go in Katy, mainly because it's pretty much the only place to go in Katy. Sad, but still fun.

I spent Christmas Eve with my sister and parents and grandparents, and we did our yearly tradition of going to the candlelight service at my grandparents' church and then eating dinner at the chinese buffet close by. My grandparents came over to our house on Christmas, and my mom made a delicious lunch of bacon wrapped fillets, green beans, mashed potatoes, and strawberries... mmmm. My family and I drove to Austin on Saturday to have our big family Christmas at my Aunt and Uncle's. Kori (my cousin's fiancee) gave my uncle a contraption to cook jalepeno poppers in in the shape of Texas. Oh, how I love this state!

On the 26th I gathered a big group of friends to go to Wild West again so I could two-step one more time. It took a little encouragement (and by that I mean me physically dragging them onto the dance floor), but eventually Carlo, James Dempsey, Robert, and Andrew learned how to two step and would dance with me! The most fun may have been the rap songs, though, where we all got a little bit ridiculous. On the 29th I made my 2nd trip to Austin (the city) with Austin (the person) and Bretani to attend Isabelle's mom's memorial service. It was held in the Austin Museum of Popular Culture, and they had pictures showing how vibrant and artistic her mother was. It was a wonderful celebration of her life, and we were all glad to be there to see Isabelle and remember her mother with her. I was reminded of how important and unique all of the people I love are, and how lucky I am to have them in my life.

While in Austin we had dinner at Trudy's, where the Bretani and Blair and I had mexican martinis! The poor boys (Luke, Chris, James, and Austin) had to put up with us dancing around all night at Blair and Luke's apartment, but I don't think they minded too much. We drove back to Katy the next day, and I caught up with Kristin and Christie at Starbucks. On the 31st I made my 3rd trip to Austin in a week to drill my speleothem for more samples and to party it up for New Year's. We all met up at Manolo's for dinner and then went to Dane's to ring in the New Year. We managed to finish 7 bottles of champagne- Happy New Year!

On Friday Will came into town to see all of the geologists in Houston (me, Alicia, Blair, Luke, James, Bretani, and Austin), and after a 2 hour (!!!) wait we all ate at the best Mexican restaurant in the world, Lupe Tortilla's. The next morning I woke up early to spend a day unpacking and sorting about a million dollars worth of rocks. One of his friends goes to Brazil once a year to buy tons (literally) of museum quality rocks for really great prices. We and about 30 others helped unpack the crates of rocks and sort them all out. I got about 20 hand sample sized minerals that are some of the coolest ones I've ever seen!