O, Holy Carp

On Christmas Eve, Anna and I took Elizabeth, Abby, and Noah to the Indianapolis Children's Museum. It is apparently the largest such museum in the world, and on Christmas Eve, admission is free. It was insane. We arrived at the museum just before opening, and the line of cars to get parking was several blocks long. The museum itself was kind of fun, but it was impossible to really stop and enjoy stuff because of all the people. Noah was everywhere. It took me awhile to get used to the idea that this place was designed for kids to touch and crawl all over everything. We spent most of the time just yelling "Noah!" as he ran off to some new discovery.
When we left the museum, we decided to get some food. It is at this point that I had this conversation with Noah:
Noah: "Where are we going?"
Me: "Crazy."
Noah: "I want little chickens and lemonade at Crazy."
We went to Chick-fil-a, and Noah got to eat his little chickens.
Christmas Eve night, Anna and I stayed at her parents' house. Daisy played with Hank. Lucy sulked in the corner because she hates it when other dogs get attention.
Christmas morning we woke up. We ate a delicious egg bake thingy that Anna's mother made. Then we decided to open presents.
I gave Anna "Up," a collection of Lewis Carroll's books, and a "sherpa" lined hoodie. Anna gave me a deep fryer and a Donkeys hat. Her parents gave me a super sweet laser range finder (it's a little like a telescope that you can use to calculate yardage when hunting). Her parents are too good to me.
We went to see Evil Grandmother for lunch. Anna's Uncle Phil and Aunt Debbie were there too. Anna and her uncle had a blast comparing applications on their new Droid phones (Anna found a really sweet guitar application that lets you play the phone like an acoustic guitar). Evil Grandmother declared that, "Tiger Woods really blew his wad, didn't he?" Aunt Debbie just said, "You could put it that way."
Evil grandmother gave Anna's father and me one of those Jupiter Jacks. I just kind of laughed to myself.
Sarah and her boyfriend came by later on Christmas. We gave Sarah a little hand purse made from a recycled sari and a book on the history of farting. We gave her boyfriend a flashlight. He was really excited to get presents (his family is Jewish, and I think this might have been his first Christmas).
Sarah made a cheese ball. We ate it.
I tried to call my family on Christmas. I got my mom. My brother and sister wouldn't answer their phones, and my dad never has his on.
On Christmas Eve, I passed out a bag with a chocolate cookie, a couple pieces of peppermint bark, and a card to all the residents. I hope nobody choked.
The Donkeys playoff possibilities make me want to cry.
Our friend Jennifer is staying at Anna's parents' house with her boyfriend. They are both in the Army. They are here for the last week of their Christmas leave. Sunday night we went to BW3s to watch the Donkeys continue to make a mess of themselves (if you will all recall, I said several weeks ago that they would finish no better than 9-7, which is only two more wins than my predicted 7-9 at the beginning of the season). And none of this will be enough to get McDaniels canned.
Later that night, in a haze of post-Denver-loss depress, we all tried to teach Jennifer euchre. She spent the first half of the game playing games on her phone at the same time. Each hand she would ask Anna (my partner) what she should do. We spent most of the game looking at her in disbelief.
People who don't read this blog: Jennifer
I'm glad Jennifer doesn't read this blog. We haven't told her about it, mostly because it's just too easy to say mean things about her here, and we wouldn't want to hurt her feelings.