the lazy week
the christmas party was at co huong’s house this year. we played video games, sex and the city trivia, and hoopla. hoopla was the most fun– we got all the girls into it…and subsequently screamed our heads off.
and then there was the vacation.
the day after christmas, we woke up late, stuffed ourselves with blueberry coffee cake, and piled into the car and headed off to vegas. slowly. the traffic slowed to a crawl on the freeway– it was bumper to bumper most of the trip with a few short-lived spurts at 65 mph. finally, after 5 hours of driving (non-stop. my butt was sore), we arrived at mandalay bay. after checking in, we headed down to the cafe for a midnight snack. it turned out to be a midnight feast. annie ordered nachos the size of her head, ryan had an obscene looking sandwich, and i got a pile of fruit and sorbet. we ate and ate and stumbled back to our room where i played with my new toy (polaroid camera) and the kids fell asleep.
the next evening, after a fabuloso dinner at the Blue section of Red, White and Blue, we went to see the blue man group(strange coincidence). woo hoo! i was half asleep going in, but 20 minutes of tissue paper madness and drum beating got me up and laughing. that, and the twinkie light madness. twinkies scare me. that, and cream spouting out of peoples chests.
the next night we headed off to the bellagio holiday buffet, where we proceded to gorge ourselves on sushi, cake, and sweet corn bisque. the line to get in was gi-normous, and grew obscenely by the time we finished dinner. fat and happy, we ambled our way through the casino, past all the pretty shops, and back out into the rain, but not before annie took a spill in the revolving door. poor annie.
there was some gambling in there somewhere, too, but i lost everything i put in. poopy. we also missed dinner at rumjungle, the brazilian restaurant with the go go girl undulating upon a raised platform. next time, perhaps.
we headed out to big bear some time after lunchy. a little more than halfway up the mountain, my little civic started to skid, so we stopped to put on tire chains. ryan and annie got out of the car into the show and promptly got hit with a ton of ice as a giant orange snow plow thing sped by. hahahahahahaha. the snow kept coming down as they fiddled with the chains, but after a little while, we were on our way again.
until we got stuck in the snow, that is.
we spent our time playing in the snow, grabbing icicles, and watching tv until our eyes hurt. on new year’s eve we played zelda, and drank asti at midnight before passing out. we came home the next day and celebrated new year’s day at wabi sabi with a ton of sushi. mmmmmmmmm.
more pictures…
