Kinetic Chemistry: Winter-een-mas and Things

There's a reason for my distraction lately:

Ahhhh obsession.

Game of Thrones Season 1 came out on DVD. We may or may not have coincidentally been out at Wal-Mart at midnight the night it came out. This also may have coincided with the Mass Effect 3 video game midnight release which we weren't there for, but many others were. And I may or may not have been 2 seconds away from threatening the nearest stock boy that if he didn't find a copy for me ASAP I would make his job very difficult. (I didn't actually threaten anyone. I was just getting very antsy when waiting for the Mass Effect 3 line to go down so I could get some help. I'm not very patient.)

I bet you thought I forgot about the Winter-een--mas trip post didn't you. Well, HA. I did NOT! Although, I should warn you. This post may ramble more than others. This is likely due to A.) The lack of oxygen to my brain due to not being able to breathe, and B.) Being hopped up on cold meds. Stupid Mother Nature and her P.M.S.-like mood-swings. Let it be known that I REFUSE to turn the air-conditioning on in March! I don't care if it's 85 in our apartment. Here that Mother Nature?! You will not be breaking my ~~stubbornness~~ determination!

Anyway, so Winter-een-mas. For those that are unaware, it's a gamer holiday. It started as a part of the online comic Ctrl+Alt+Del and gained in popularity with gamers everywhere. Since my dear husband is an avid gamer, he has celebrated this holiday since he found out about it. And since he didn't get to go home during Christmas, we could think of no better 2nd Christmas and no better time to make a trip home then during Winter-een-mas. (Last week of January)

We went home for a record five day long trip. It was pretty great. Usually we only have a 3 or 4 day weekend when we go home. One of the disadvantages of living as far away from home as we do and having our friends and family mostly in one place (*cough*mom*cough*), is that trips home always seem rushed and we never get to see as many people as we would like. To help this, we decided that instead of rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off, we made family a priority and spent time with them separately and then we would have one big party and anyone that wanted to celebrate the holiday/party with us could come!

In general, it was a huge success. We even had our friends Andrew and Amanda drive up from Alabama, and our friend Frank drove up from Kentucky for the party! (Did I mention they were awesome? Cause they are.) There was booze, friends, much visiting, and a good time was had by all (at least, I hope it was for everyone). The only catch: Ironically, there wasn't much gaming. We didn't think about the fact that everybody hadn't been gathered together like that in a very long time. So, mostly people forgot about the games once booze and visiting was involved. Next time we do this, we're gonna try to set up pre-set tables for people that wish to do more gaming. We DID play an awesome board game called Zombies! And there was tons of food, since we made it a potluck.

And here comes the bombardment of pictures.