Merry Christmas!

Fortunately this morning I was not forced to get out of bed until 9:30am in order to open presents.  In past years, the time has been closer to 5:30 or 6:00am.  I'm glad that was not the case this year since I stayed up watching Kill Bill vol. 2 until 3am.  Sleeping in on Christmas morning is definitely a good present.

Merry Christmas to all my friends and family.  Here are some more photos of Christmas in the Leu house.

The tree on Xmas eve:

A fire in the fireplace:

Sarah opening gifts:

Dad opening my gift; espresso cups.

Mom with the book I got her.

My pile of loot... a bunch of DVDs, some books, a video game, candy, and gift cards/cash.

Sarah waits for breakfast while watching Miracle on 34th Street

A shot of espresso in one of the cups I bought my dad.

Traditional Xmas breakfast at our house; Eggs Danielle, english muffins, and a glass of eggnog.

Foxwoods on Xmas eve morning

I had plans for a long, story-filled blog post, but instead I'm keeping this one short and sweet.  Got to Foxwoods just before midnight on the 23rd and found an 8 person wait list for 1/2.  It didn't take all that long to get seated, but that is unusual - even for a holiday.  Got seated at a table I was in love with (lots of weak passive players, and no one that I felt I really needed to watch out for), but could not catch a hand to save my life.  I didn't have very many stellar preflop hands (JJ once, AK once and that was about it), but fortunately, as I mentioned, my table was fairly passive so it was easy to limp with marginal holdings and also relatively easy to steal after my table image had been established.  Finally connected with a few boards and after about 4 hours of play had made $200.  At that point, the table had just had some new players come in, I was tired, and knew I had stuff to do later that day, so I played my last free hands and cashed out. 

There were some funny antics at my table, but I'm not really in the mood to recount them now...  Suffice it to say this one guy made a hilarious play (bluff) by showing a nine.  For at least an hour after that, jokes about "showing the nine" were flying around the table.  I also got some standard TFD* abuse, but the guy who was the worst offender paid me off every time, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Don't know if I'm gonna get there again this trip since I'm leaving Wednesday afternoon, but I might try to go play later today (Xmas) at some point. 

*TFD: Typical Foxwoods Donkey - A player who is generally from the Boston area, sexist, and drunk.  They also think they are the best player ever but insist on paying me off every time, most likely because I am a girl.  As a result of calling station tendencies, suckouts are also possible.  They populate the 1/2 tables at Foxwoods on the weekends and love to make jokes about female dealers/players.  I feel worse for the dealers because they have to take the jokes without getting anything out of it.  At least I can hope to take their money. 

Charlie Wilson's War

Went to go see this tonight with the fam...  It's funny how two people can leave a movie with completely opposite impressions.  My dad thought it was inspirational.  I found it rather depressing.  Don't want to give too much away for people who haven't seen it, but it's all about the US's involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980's.  Mike Nichols directs and it's written by Aaron Sorkin.  Worth seeing if you have the time/inclination. 

Photo dump

GVPT holiday party:




Anne shares something very interesting with Melissa, Dan, and Jim

Jill and Maren manage to mug for the camera...the rest of us are enjoying the free food...

The first years enjoying the party...

Degenerate Drinking in PA:




Cooking our dinner at the Tiki Bar

Group shot one

Group shot two

Blevins

Billy

Christmas in Connecticut (minus Barbara Stanwyck):




the job of annoying your younger sister is never done

My parents have a really nice fireplace, but the stockings never go there because their contents would melt

Dad tells Sarah how he got through knee surgery

The pumpkin-tini I got at our swanky dinner out...it was very good.

Oysters...they made the mignonette sauce with red wine vinegar...yummy.

Beef Wellington with a slice of the best fois gras I have ever had...even in Paris.  If I could have, I would have licked this plate clean.

After we have all stuffed ourselves, a family picture

Happy not to be the only one with foot-in-mouth disease...

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/news/2007/12/YE_foot_mouth

I Come From a Pretty Cool Family

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm up for adventure.  In college, one of my friend's mom's started calling me crazy Katie because I spontaneously decided to get in my car and drive by myself overnight from DC to West Palm Beach, FL to hang out for Spring Break.  I love roadtrips.

My mom just sent me the link to my Aunt and Uncle's new website.  They are selling up and retiring on a boat with plans to sail around the world.  It's actually cheaper to live on the boat than on land, and I'm sure they are going to have an awesome time.  I hope i get the opportunity to meet up with them in port someday and check out their new home.

I also just got a video Christmas card from another Uncle who took off a few years from work to roadtrip around the US and Australia/New Zealand....

I guess now I can see where I get my love of travel.

Trivia Choking

So a few weeks ago when I started showing up for pub trivia on Tuesdays, Keenan was joking around that I was the Randy Moss of trivia and now we would win.  Sadly, the past two weeks we have worked our way into second place only to choke on the final question.  Last week in particular it was brutal because we made an awesome comeback from second to last to second place...with only 30 points separating us from the leaders.  The set up on the last question at Orange Ball is like final Jeopardy...you have to wager.  We wagered a lot and ended up with a measly 80 points...putting us from second place to somewhere close to dead last.  Plus we lost to a team of tools who called themselves "Team PokerStars."  We started joking around to them that we were Team FullTilt because FT has better pros...

Losing the glory is bothering me!  And we won't be able to try to actually win one of these damn things until 1/8.  I think it's time for a game of Trivial Pursuit so I can assert my trivia dominance. 

Bonuses of the evening: In Bethesda two weeks ago at Union Jack's we saw a bar fight between a bunch of guys in suits.  Ha-freaking-larious.  Only in Bethesda.  And, at Orange Ball, Curtis bought me and Billy a shot of Patron.  Free drinks are always good.