Of New Years 2009, Sucky Cancer, and Gnarly GPS

Well, another year has gone down the Potty of History, my friends, and I sincerely hope I don't jinx myself and my family's financial well-being for years to come when I say that, in our case, it really wasn't that bad! I mean, I received my Masters and Alyssa is on the verge of completing her bachelor's; we both have jobs (mine is with a company whose leader is more powerful than Oprah! OPRAH!); we're steadily saving up for what will no doubt be an extremely cheap house; and we're on our way toward adopting. Oh yeah, and gas is the cheapest it's been since before September 11th. Can't complain there! Not everything is perfect, of course. We recently learned that my uncle Dave has a serious form of cancer. Sucks. I think Dave has always been my favorite uncle and I hope and pray that everything turns out for the best.

Alyssa and I went to St. George for Christmas this year. Good times were had in abundance. Granted, we didn't do a whole lot there--do we ever?--but when I'm on vacation I don't really want to do stuff. That's just the Ben Creed. Alyssa, who has to be doing something every second or she'll implode, may think differently, but she can go eat cheese. I mean... umm... I love you, sweetie! Ahem. Besides opening presents, we Guitar Hero'd it up (well, everyone else did, I played it once and decided I'd had enough); hung out with my friends (including the long-departed Russell and Kenley); and had my mother take pictures of us for our online adoption profile. That's about it. Oh yeah, we got a gnarly GPS for our car. Now we'll never get lost again! Bwa ha ha! (Just watch me somehow wind up in Nevada later this week...)

For New Year's Eve, we went to Alyssa's parents' house for games and snackage, but probably only stayed until 10:30ish because Alyssa got sick somehow (she claims it was because she "didn't blow-dry her hair in time"). So we missed out on some midnight drunken revelry in Times Square, no doubt, but I think we'll pull through. Somehow.

The 23rd Epistle of Benicus Grenarius to the Blogarians (a.k.a. Of Moving From One Basement to Another, 10-Year Class Reunions, Emmett and da Pug, Cow Racing, and Blood-Curdling Skeletal Mona Lisas)

Peace be unto you. It's a lovely Sunday afternoon here in West Jordan. Yes, it's true. We've moved into a basement apartment just off of 13th West. Goodbye free room and board. Goodbye private theater room in Alyssa's parents' basement. Hello, self-respect. So good to finally see you again! So yeah, we're still pretty much in the middle of getting everything situated--we've got boxes from here to Canada (well...not...really...), but at least just about everything has been moved now.

We recently returned from a Labor Day trip to St. George so we could attend my 10-year class reunion. Lovely times were had by all. It was good to finally see my parents again since the first time since May, not to mention li'l Emmett (see the accompanying photo) and crazy old Pug, who kept running away from me, her bestest buddy for about six years back in the day. Dang her. And Alyssa had quite the time playing my parents' Wii for hours on end. She's gotten to the point where she can pretty much waste my trash in all of the games, including the one where you're racing on a cow. Not to mention all of the sports games. My reunion was all right--it was great talking to people I haven't seen in many a year and the food was a definite step up from the Sloppy Joes, salad from a bag, and Kool-Aid they provided at the five-year reunion--but I felt like it could have been so much more. For example, aren't fake trophies usually given out to people who've met certain criteria? You know, like to the person who traveled the shortest distance to get to the reunion? (That would have been Jen Shaw, in our case.) And there wasn't any kind of program, which was fairly disappointing. Also, I'll bet there were only somewhere between 30 and 40 people at the dinner, out of a graduating class of 366. (And only 2 of those people were jocks! Pretty weird when you consider that our graduating class was the biggest jockocracy in the history of public school.) But I was still glad to have attended, just the same.

Besides the reunion, Alyssa and I had an enjoyable time in St. George. We invited Paul and Danielle to dinner one night and Alyssa cooked up some ever-so-loverly Japanese food. Also, we went shopping one day and bought the awesomest Halloween decoration you ever did see--a holographic rendition of the Mona Lisa that turns creepy and skeletal-like depending on the angle you're facing. Yeah, we're weird. But it's a good kind of weird.