To Grandmother's House We Go

Twas time this year to make the trip to the Hastings family Christmas at my grandma's house in Nevada. As per our usual, we had Christmas at home, let Mom enjoy her birthday (12/26), and then hit the road on 12/27. It was a slow ride thanks to tons and tons of traffic. I passed the time by trying out the knifty knitter my mom bought me for Christmas, napping, and listening to my MP3 player. We arrived in Boulder City just before dinner time, which allowed us to check into the Boulder Dam Hotel before meeting the rest of the clan for dinner.

12/27 is my AuntDiane's birthday, and she likes to go out for dinner on her birthday. So we ate right across the street at the Big Horn Cafe. Our nuclear family got to meet Diane's boyfriend Steve and Courtney's baby Michael. Dinner conversation centered heavily on wedding plans and preparations. It was fun to get to fill in the family and family friends who were there. For dinner, I enjoyed chicken parmesan and a tomato, lentil soup. Since we had two birthday celebrants, they gave us several baklava, two slices of cheesecake, and two slices of chocolate cake.

We spent a little time after dinner at Grandma's getting caught up with Diane and getting to know Steve. He was very sweet and brought each of us a scratcher as a gift. I think between the four of us we won $5 lol. Back at the hotel, we had an interesting "The Middle" esque incident before heading off to bed. Let's just say, it's a good thing we had two bathrooms.

The Boulder Dam Hotel provides a full breakfast now, which was fantastic. Tuesday morning I had juice and french toast with bacon. After a leisurely breakfast, we set out for the day. One of the family friends is an executor for people's estates, and wanted help moving some furniture. THus, fisst stop was at the estate. It was a little house built int he 50's. There was some very crazy wallpaper and an old dial phone.

The afternoon was spent at Grandma's, playing games and chatting, oh and playing with the baby! Mom made a roast for dinner and we enjoyed a round of The Game of Things over dessert. Our evening was made complete by stopping by a house with most Christmas decorations I've ever seen! They had lights EVERYWHERE!!! We took quite a few pictures and then retired to our hotel.

Wednesday for breakfast I had some very delicious blueberry pancakes. My aunts and cousin had left for home early that morning, so it was just us and Grandma for the day. The four of us drove out to see the new bridge over the Colorado River from Hoover Dam. We had pizza lunch in town and did a bit of shopping. Quite luckily, we happened across some very cheap bridal shower supplies and stocked up on plates/cups/napkins, balloons, invitations, and thank you cards.

We ate up the leftovers for dinner and played some more games. Though there weren't new ones on, we watched a couple episodes of teh Middle and Modern Family. Thursday morning we had breakfast, said our goodbyes to Grandma, and were on the road again. We stopped at a Krispee Kremes to fuel up and got a dozen donuts and tasty coffee drinks. The way home held much better traffic. The only excitement we had was seeing a jack-knifed semi, and seeing snow.

Boulder City doesn't have much excitement, but it's always nice to see family and celebrate the holidays together :)

Weekend in Nevada

My parents, Stephen, and I just got back this afternoon from spending a long weekend with my dad's family in Nevada. My dad grew up in Boulder City, Nevada, about 45 minutes outside Las Vegas, and my grandma still lives there. My two aunts and cousin had all arrived earlier in the week and were there for Christmas.

We piled into my dad's Camri Friday morning, dropped Nigel off at the petsitter's, and set out on the 5.5-6.5 hour drive. There was snow in the mountain pass, but sdaly none left at my grandma's house. I was hoping it would snow enough on Christmas for some to stick so we could see it. No such luck, oh well.

Friday was my mom's birthday (what a way to spend your birthday, driving for 6 hours in the desert) and Saturday was my Aunt Diane's birthday, so we celebrated by going out for dinner at the only restaurant that was open Friday night, Big Horn. It was a nice Italian/Mediterranean place. We had a fairly large group with my aunts, cousin, grandma and our family friends the Lindebergs. I got veel parmesan, quite tasty.

Two favorite quotes of the evening
#1 "They had me at lamb cabobs" Stephen
#2 My cousin Stephanie: Hey
Our Waiter: What?
Stephanie: It's my mom's birthday
Waiter: I know (ref
Stephanie: I eating it *referring to the birthday cake*

After dinner we went back to my grandma's house and had cheesecake and hung out. My parents and Steve and I spent Friday and Saturday night in the old hotel in Boulder City, since the 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house was already a bit full. It was also good to get a little break from the craziness. My cousin Stephanie, now 15, has physical and intellectual disabilities. She is very sweet, but loves attention and doesn't mind being loud to get it. It was kinda funny, over the course of the weekend I went from "Lindsey", to "Aunt Lindsey", to "Lindseya" (what she had been calling Valencia) to "Aunt Lindseya" haha

Saturday my Aunt Lauren's friend Courtney flew in from Reno to visit and then drive back with Aunt Lauren on Sunday. We hung out, played a couple games of Apples to Apples and Uno and watching Mama Mia. Sunday morning Aunt Lauren and Courtney left, and Aunt Diane and Stephanie left for the airport not too long after. The 4 in my family moved in over to my grandma's house and spent the day relaxing there, and playing Yahtzee. And we drove home this morning.

I love getting to see family, but am glad to be home again. I'm also getting mildly antsy about being back on campus. And don't even talk to me about grad school applications, ugh. I have a lot to do this week.