Last day of break. Christmas break has been good this year but chill. We didn’t do much traveling, but just tried to relax a bit and reset. Working around the major job of helping out Mary Jane. She had surgery on the 19th and was at the hospital in FW for several days before heading back to Warsaw and being in rehab at Miller’s for a week or so. Beth and I and Missy and Alex traveled back and forth to FW a few times in the first week to visit and bring her things from her apartment. The only fun thing we had planned was going to Medieval Times (we thought it’d be fun to get the whole gang there again, probably one last time). Getting there while working around the schedules was a trial in itself: Beth originally bought tickets for all of us before break, and told us the tickets were on the 29th. But then Alex’s work schedule came out and he was working on the 29th and couldn’t go. So Beth checked and realized that the tickets were not on the 29th, they were on the 28th…when Laura & Thomas were still going to be visiting us. So I called and got our times rescheduled to the 23rd (the date Beth told me to get) but then…as it turned out we couldn’t go on the 23rd either because Alex was working that date too. So we had to call and reschedule our time again to the 24th. Did I mention that there’s a fee of $50 for rescheduling which we did twice? Anyway we went to Medieval Times the day before Christmas. We were seated in the Black & White Knight’s section this time, too bad for us because he was the first one to get killed, by the treachery of the Blue Knight. That was the major plot line of this show, so they had half of the crowd cheering for the side that were clearly the bad guys, blue and their allies. But the good news is one of the good guys won in the end. Yellow & Red, I think it was. Not our guy, but one of our allies at least. Anyway, we only spent the one day in the Chicago area and drove back home afterwards, not even going to IKEA. 

Christmas was obviously the next day. We spent it at home, and it was pretty low key compared to past years. I put up the Christmas lights across the front roofline of the house and winding down the pillars along the front just after break started, and I put up the Christmas tree the same day but left the boxes of ornaments out for everyone else to decorate the tree if they wanted. Nobody did anything so I put the boxes away a couple days before Christmas. No stockings this year. When everyone got up on Christmas morning we opened presents: I got Beth the Warsaw Cut Glass ornament, Missy got mostly games and books and t-shirts, Nat got mostly clothes and beauty products, Alex got mostly games and clothes and Legos, I got a Lowe’s gift card and a family game. This year instead of over-doing a big huge family meal for way too few people, Beth decided that she didn’t feel like standing and cooking all day so we went out to eat at Ruby Tuesday instead. Hadn’t been there in forever but it was open on Christmas so that’s where we went. Laura and Thomas arrived Friday the 26th to visit a few days. The majority of the time we played Wizard or Azul, but Thomas brought expansion packs for Exploding Kittens so we played that a lot too. We went out to breakfast on Saturday and did some shopping all around the Village, then in the evening things went a little sideways. Natalie was out with a friend and somehow…I’m not sure about all the details…got caught up in the friend’s family drama involving a baby daddy, the kids, his mom, and his new girlfriend, and the drama escalated until Natalie was grabbed and yanked on and she slapped and spit on someone. Then the cops were called and Natalie was arrested for battery with body fluids. No, seriously. I got a call that she was being arrested and needed me to bring all her meds in case she had to spend the night in jail. She had the cuffs put on her and got a ride to the sheriff’s office, got booked and processed. We weren’t sure that she wouldn’t have to spend the whole weekend in jail since it was already after 5:00 on a Saturday, but once she was processed the bond was set at $505 and she has a court date in March, unless it’s all dismissed by then. We had her home by around 8:00 or so, and hopefully she won’t be hanging around with that friend any more. We had reservations at Cerulean for dinner, and the whole thing going on there made Beth and me late, but L&T went on and we were able to join them around a half hour later. We played some more games with L&T the rest of the evening. Sunday we had been planning to go to a Komets game in the evening, but as I found out less than a week ago just after I bought the tickets, the ECHL was on the verge of a strike over working conditions for the players, and as it turned out, the strike went on Friday and lasted through Sunday. 3 games postponed, including ours, so we had to punt instead. Beth and the kids and I went to church and L&T came over a bit later, and we spent a while playing games. I actually won a round of Wizard. Since there was no hockey game, we went out to see the new “Zootopia 2” movie, which I must say I was a little hesitant to see, because I loved the first one so much. I was afraid the sequel just wouldn’t measure up to the first one which was brilliant. But….not to worry, because the sequel in this case is at least just as good as the original one. They headed out for Chicago on Monday morning. And with that, the holidays were effectively over, but I still had a complete week off, which worked out nicely for me. We didn’t do much else, but I’ve re-started my Zwift membership so I did a lot of virtual riding in the garage, Alex worked, Nat was off with her bf a lot of the time, Missy saw some friends, and Beth and I helped Mary Jane a lot. She moved into rehab at Miller’s by the 29th so we helped her get all the things she needed to get comfortable there. Beth and Missy spent some time with her visiting and such. I got some general errands done: the whole-house humidifier started leaking pretty badly so I got a new filter for it and got us set up for a furnace/AC service plan, since we somehow had let that slip and hadn’t been serviced in 2 or 3 years. I got an appointment at the Toyota dealership for service on the minivan because something broke in the hood release and Missy was unable to open the hood at all. She had driven home for break with no washer fluid because the hood release just didn’t work any more. Unfortunately, they needed to order parts so I’m going to have to bring the minivan in *after* Missy goes back to college, which means we’ll have to drive her there and leave her without a vehicle for a few days, then drive both vehicles back there so we can leave the van with her. Oh well. For NYE, we did basically nothing. Nobody had any real plans and Beth and I were in bed by 11:30. 

Missy wanted to head back to Muncie on Friday so she could catch up and rest a bit before classes start Monday, and because technically the apartment isn’t supposed to sit empty for 2 whole weeks by the terms of the lease. Beth wasn’t feeling great so she stayed home; Missy and I loaded up to van and took the old familiar road back to BSU. Unloading the van at her apartment, I slipped on the ice on the sidewalk and fell right on my hip pretty hard…basically the same thing MJ did so I’m glad I didn’t end up in surgery and rehab. Anyway we unloaded Missy’s things and did some grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, then I headed back home. Her roommates were to arrive over the weekend so Missy was alone in the house without a car, but she seemed fine with that. For the rest of the weekend, there’s really nothing to report.