Other Holiday Tidbits

I am beginning to notice a trend: I so look forward to the holidays, and then they are over in a blur!

Our holiday celebrations began with our Annual "4 Nights of Christmas" (which is actually a misnomer: it started a few years ago when there were four Thomases. Now there are 3 thomases and 2 Brysons, so it should be 5 nights. We can never seem to get the 5 different schedules to add up right, so every year there are between 3 and 5 "nights.")

Monday was Kate's choice: 5 guys burgers and fries in Carson. It was really yummy, but the most memorable part was going shopping at Old Navy after, and John's tireless efforts to get us home as expediently as possible in holiday traffic.

Tuesday was a night off.

Wednesday night was me and John's choice: The Olde Pizza Shoppe in Redlands. We went there last year too, but we went again, and tried different pizzas. My favorite is still the Balboa which has pesto, potatoes, chicken and other stuff. We tried the Wild Willy which was too much: it has chicken, BBQ sauce, potato wedges and again, other stuff.

Thursday night was my mom and dad's choice: Logan's Roadhouse in Fontana. This was fun because Judy and Marc came too. John liked the burger, and I had the chicken with sweet potatoes on the side. Kate came over to our house after, and we got her addicted to Beatles Rock band too.

John had me open his present to me on Thursday so we would have time to play with it. He TOTALLY surprised me by going to Target (all by himself) and picking out something I never woudl have thought of. He got me a under the cabinet stereo for the kitchen that my ipod can plug into. It has awesome sound that you can hear through the whole house. He also got me a ring that I had picked out several months ago at the Costa Mesa swapmeet.

I got John two Tom Petty gifts: his new live compilation on cd, and the documentary about his life that we loved watching last year. I also found Simon and Simon the first season for him, which we have both been enjoying all week.

We got some great gifts at my parents. I did a lot of research in December about what kind of boots I wanted to get. I finally decided on a certain pair of UGGS, which was hard for me to admit. They were honestly the best choice out of all the pairs that I looked into. I promise I am not turning into a hot girl. Anyway, the deal was that my mom would by the right boot, if I would buy the left one. :) One of my favorite gifts was from Kate, which was the real, plastic, insulated version of the Venti iced tea cup. My mom did really well with buying gifts that were a surprise and also off of our lists. I was proud of her for pulling it all together.

As for what happened Christmas day and after, check out my previous post. We had a lot of fun, but talk about blur. I saw more people in those 3 days than I have in a long time. Tammy made us new fleece blankets and calendars for the new year. Kelly made me an awesome necklace, and Justin made John a really cool stainless steel toolbox. Everyone seemed to like the gifts we made them: Tammy and JD wore the "Bryson's Golden's" sweatshirts right away.

At the Bryson Christmas in Lemoore we did our gift exchange, which was fun. John got an Autozone gift card and I got a Barnes and Noble gift card. I gave Uncle Gary his Cowboys Mr. Potato head and got a good laugh. We played Beatles Rock Band on Wii, and I got addicted to playing on a ginormous tv.

On Monday, John and I took a little jaunt to the coast. We went to Cambria and Cayucos to walk around. We went to San Luis Obispo to have lunch and walk around. We ate at Woodstock's which is an amazing pizza place discovered years ago with the Blades and the Browns. John's favorite part of the day, though, was driving on the beach at Pismo. We decided to pay to go on the beach, rather than to pay to park. He enjoyed driving the length of the beach, climbing some hills and leaving some rooster tails in the wet sand.

We debated about staying with John's parents' another day, but John called in to work and found that he could get some hours on Wednesday so we decided to come home Tuesday morning. The dogs had played so hard all weekend that they slept all the way home. It was an easy drive, which was good, because sometimes it is not!

The last few days have consisted of sleeping a lot, putting away Christmas stuff, playing John's new Classic Rock Rockband (The James Gang's Funk 49 is totally my new favorite song) and playing with all the rest of our gift cards.

Overall, the holidays have been busy, but fun!