  The 21st??? Dang, I haven't posted for a long time! *reaches into the deep recesses of his brain in effort to pull out memories of everything that has happened in the last week and 'a half* On Monday the 23rd, I went to the Christmas party our youth group put on with Gwen.
It was pretty fun and sporadic - kinda like youth group normally is - hmm... I wonder why... :) On Tuesday, the 24th, I went to see LotRs again with quite a few more people, but I woke up around 12:10, and the movie started at 1:00, so I had barely enough time to make it the theater. I was going to invite Gwen to it, but I didn't even know the time we were supposed to be there, until right after I woke up - dumb of me. Then, on Christmas the (come on now, everyone knows that date), we had around 45 ppl over, including the Lundins, and the [L]Andersons.
We pretty much screwed around the entire night, and got nothing productive done. Later, on Thursday the 26th (is this even necessary anymore? ), I had lunch at Gwen's house, and met her family - specifically her dad, who I talked to at some length concerning taking her to the banquet. He's a cool guy. Well, actually, in a broader view, they're a cool family. *If only my family weren't so dysfunctional, then maybe we'd be 'cool' in some sense as well* hmm... wishful thinking. One unfortunate highlight was when she asked me a rather simple, direct question - in what manner was I inviting her to the banquet? As a friend, or more? For some reason that I still cant figure out, I balked, and offered no straight answer, and she dropped it.
(Though after much thought concerning the emotional well being of both of us at such an early stage, I called her back the next day and confirmed that we were still on officially 'just friends', but subject to change. ) Early Saturday morning (like 5:15, which was bad, cause I got to sleep at around 3:00), I got up, and my dad drove me out to a starbucks near my cousins' old house, where I met my uncle, and drove all the way over to Mt. Bachelor to go skiing. I can't believe how stinkin' bad I was at first. I was REALLY out of practice.
My uncle is a very advanced skier, but for some reason he decided to snowboard. It looked rather funny watching him, because he turned out to be a worse snowboarder than I was a skier. After several hours, we drove back to Redmond and met the rest of my family at my other uncle's vacation "cabin" (or at least, that's what he made it out to be...). It turned out to be a gated 2,700 square foot house with a three-car garage, and a 100-acre luxury golf course bordering the back lawn. The subdivision even had it's own private indoor / outdoor pool, and fitness center. My cousins and sisters and I got little sleep because of my newly acquired Xbox, and matching HALO.
:) We went to a church the next morning, and I was so unbelievably tired, that I almost slept though the sermon. We went back to the super-cabin and I took a five-hour nap, completely missing my family's trip to the best Chinese restraunt under Oregon sun. Once I woke up, we played more HALO, and finally got bored, and went to the pool complex around 9:00. After and hour of swimming inside, we got bored yet again, and decided to go make use of the hot tubs out in the snow.
We did that for about half an hour, and got tired of it, so we went and rolled around in the snow for a little while, and got back in again. After quite a while later, we decided that the ice forming in our hair wasn't such a good thing after all, and retreated back to our mega-cabin. Then, this morning, we got up, and went to the mountain yet again, and messed around in the snow for another hours or so, and then drove all the way back home, with a short stop at an Izzy's in Bend.
Tomorrow, my youth group is having a big New Year's party from 6:30, to 1:30 (or something like that...), and I want to invite Gwen to it. Though there is a possibility that she's going to her church's New Year's overnighter... Something I was going to go to, but for lack of funds. It's late, and I'm tired - need sleep, must go... P.S. I am an anti-Andrewist (don't ask) 
