Final Fargo Post

Holy shit have the last five days have been hectic! The craziness started on Christmas Eve.

While we're out here we had a blended family Christmas extravaganza. WifeRat's Father remarried after her Mom passed and his wife; my Mother-in-law and BabyRat's Grandmother, better known as Nanna; has two daughters of her own, one of whom lives right here in town named Shania. We actually see Shania and her family a fair bit, Shania's husband Craig was instrumental in pig cooking that went down at the lake this Summer and Shania's daughter Madison had swimming lessons with BabyRat at the Dragon Swim School while we were here. Nanna also has another daughter, Helen, who lives in Grand Forks with her boyfriend and they made the scene for Christmas Eve as well.

In deference to Craig who is Catholic (Shania is converting to Catholicism and Madison goes to Catholic school too), we all attended Christmas Eve Mass. After Mass it was back to Nanna's for a Christmas Eve appetizer buffet that included enough food to feed triple the number of people that were there. Once everyone had eaten themselves stupid and had a drink or two it was time to open presents.

Now this opening presents on Christmas Eve thing is new to me. I had heard of people who did it, but in the family I was born into all gift opening happened on Christmas Day.

WifeRat had always maintained that my family was ridiculous with presents on Christmas and it's true, the gift giving is excessive. My sister and I have both been working professionals for over ten years, but my folks continuously found ways to lavish insane amounts of gifts on us and years when SisRat and I have been flush we have gone all out too. So imagine my surprise when as Christmas approached, you could hardly walk in the living room of my in-laws house 'cause there were gifts everywhere. Naturally, just like every year at my folk's house, we had a four hour plus Bataan Death March of gift opening that ended after 11pm.

Christmas Day the temperature got up to about 20 degrees which allowed us to finally take advantage of all the snow we've had this month and go sledding at a little park near Nanna's house. Yes, 20 degrees felt positively balmy after a brutal cold snap where the high temperature over about three weeks was 10 degrees Fahrenheit. BabyRat took such a long nap that we had to wake her up so we could go have a Christmas Dinner of prime rib.

While most people were lolling around the house in sweat pants the day after Christmas, playing their new video games or whatever, WifeRat and I were hard at work packing up our apartment so we can head back to DC.

This morning BabyRat and I had a little breakfast date so the Wife could continue packing in peace and then when we got home it was decided that BabyRat and I would go to Dike West for more sledding fun. I love sledding and the conditions were perfect for BabyRat and I to go careening down the hill on our gigantic inner tube. BabyRat also had an epic wipeout when we hit a jump that popped her off the inner tube when we hit the ground and knocked off one of her boots and a sock.

Then things started sucking as I spent a good portion of the rest of the day loading a trailer full of crap. WifeRat worked like a stallion packing and cleaning while I was hauling today. We took a break to go to Paradiso for dinner with the in-laws and Shania & Craig but, after putting BabyRat to bed, it was go time until I finished cleaning the bathrooms and started writing this post.

Tomorrow we hit the road and expect to be back in DC on Tuesday. Sticky Rice here I come!!!!!!!!