Merry Christmas!

I've been incredibly busy since I got back here.

Tuesday we went down to the mall, and I tried on this really cool dress at Penny's, it would have been a great latin competition dress. It was purple, rather low-cut in front, although for latin, the more skin you show the better, and it had the kind of skirt that has the chiffon trailies, so it reminded me of a jellyfish. It was a pretty neat dress, and it fit me really well, but I just couldn't see myself wearing it for anything but latin, and I don't know how much longer I'll be doing that after next year, so, I didn't think the $40 was worth it. I also got my hair trimmed, it's still about the same length, just got rid of all the split ends, so it looks much healthier now, which was really nice since I hadn't had a trim in about a year.

Wed. I went up to the University of Washington again, I'm going to continue my research there over this break, and this time I get paid for it, so that's cool. Make a little money painting brains... good stuff. We went out to dinner that night, and then picked Nana up from the airport, her plane was two hours late because they had to glue the windshield back down.... that's a little scary! But, she got in fine, thankfully.

Thursday was the best day ever! We went up to the Seattle Art Museum, which had a very cool Spanish exhibit. There were paintings, and suits of armor, and all kinds of things, from the 1400s, which was very cool to see. Then, I went with Matt to see the Duke Ellington Orchestra! It was absolutely amazing! They were soooooo good! They played a couple random Ellington pieces, and then they did a Christmas sing-along, so we got to sing the first two verses of each song, then they would go and jazz it up, so it was a lot of fun. After intermission, they played Ellington's version of the Nutcracker Suite, which was amazing! It would have been great anyway, but it was better because the Sugar Plum Fairy song, is called Sugar Rum Cherry, and she's drunk! It's so funny! We had a good time. And they were amazing musicians. I miss hearing good jazz when I'm down there. :) And then, after that fabulous concert, I went dancing! It was a lot of fun! Everyone remembered me, and I had some really good dances with some of the good people here. So it was just a wonderful evening!

Christmas was very good to me, I got my sewing machine as my big present, so I'm very excited. I'm hoping to make myself a dress over break. We'll see if I get it done. But I got a lot of other really nice things too. Like sparkly jewelry. :) You know, Matt commented that he knew for sure it was me when I got out of the car because my skirt sparkled. Am I really that sparkly all the time?! Oh well, I like it. :)

I'm now off to a week in Victoria B.C., with my family, for a week, which should be fun. I feel a little lame, spending another New Year's with my family, but, at least I'll be out of the country this time! I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a very happy New Year! Talk to you when I get back!