After the storm...

Whew. Christmas is over. It's a new year. "Twenty Ten" is how I'll be referring to it, not "two thousand and ten". Looking back, my hope for using "Aught" never really caught on - I'm referring to last year as "Oh-Nine".

We rang in the new year last night playing Monopoly (Horse Lover's Edition) with Lilli and PapaBam, who are here for the week. Bella did a good job playing too - we had to help her with some of the money stuff. Plus she was up WAY past her bedtime and was seriously punchy. Uncle Rich rang in the new year asleep with his CPAP machine softly purring. I would have loved to have been in bed too, but nobody likes a party pooper, so I settled for lights out at 12:05.

Yes, Bella stayed up to Midnight, and yes, she got up at 8 and yes, she's crabby. Isaac has had to give up his room for houseguests. On the first night, he screamed for a solid hour at bedtime wanting to be in HIS room. He's used to being in our room now, but here on day 3 of the visit has taken to walking around asking "DAD WHEN ARE THEY LEAVING? I WANT THEM TO GO HOME NOW". So New Years Day will be a day where we give them lots of movies in the basement and count the minutes to an early bedtime.

Of course, it hasn't been all crabby around here: Papa and Bella have clocked a lot of time building a wooden train from scratch. Isaac and Rich have been bonding in guy sporting things. Lilli and Bella have been great cousins... And Papa, Lilli, and I snuck off to see Avatar in 3D. It was my second viewing, and boy, what an amazing film. WOW.

I read an interview with James Cameron in Wired where he proudly zoomed in on one of the NaVi, and showed her headdress, explaining that every part of it had been individually modeled, that no detail was left out. I mention it because when we left the theater, the FIRST thing out of Papa's mouth was "DID YOU SEE the knot work on their jewelry? It was immaculate! The gems and bones were beautiful!" Add to this our Horse Girl Lilli was thrilled with all of the riding/flying scenes, and her 13-year old brain quickly latched on to the political allegories in the movie ("You know, it got me thinking that we did a lot of that sort of thing to the native americans, didn't we?") It speaks to how sometimes there are levels that we as older moviegoers take for granted that will actually turn on lightbulbs for younger people.

So in conclusion: We all loved Avatar. PapaJoe said "It's the best thing I've ever seen".

Being at home has been wonderful: I head out to Cleveland next week, and I have some pre-work to do this weekend, but I could get used to being in this house. I'm also taking advantage of my time to get back into shape: Pamela and I are sharing a personal trainer, and Tammi is completely whipping us into shape. I've had some days where I literally couldn't move (2 days after the workout is when the hamstrings tighten up, she told me), but I can feel this stuff working. IT's different than the work I was doing last year: This is building work - high weights, low repetitions - as opposed to toning work (lower weights, higher reps).

Final note: I love my Kindle DX. The larger screen really does make a difference, and it's completely worth the upgrade for me.