Well.

Last night, I finally fell asleep around 4 a.m. This morning, I got up at 8 a.m. I left about 10 minutes later than I should have for work and was stuck behind someone going 5 miles under the speed limit for probably a third of the way there.

When I finally got to work, it turned out that the server was misbehaving, and I spent probably 30 minutes trying to get my computer to restart. I spent another several hours looking up the zip codes for over 200 addresses, for a mailing we're doing.

When I got home today, I discovered that the two boxes of Christmas presents we had to mail to ourselves had arrived and had been sitting outside our garage in the rain all afternoon. I brought them in, checked the mail (in the rain!), and then walked all the way across our light beige living room carpet before noticing that I had stepped in mud while checking the mail. I also managed to almost completely shred one of the crusts I needed to make dinner while trying to get it out of the pan.

The carpet is now clean, a pot pie is in the oven, Randy is on his way home, and I am drinking a much-too-strong pina colada.

So. How are you all doing?

As promised, here's a selection of the 100 memories from our Christmas trip.

1. Wendy accidentally walking in on a little girl in the women's bathroom at a gas station, apologizing and moving on to the next stall, where she accidentally walked in on a little boy.

20. Abby doing the laundry dance.

22. Santa bringing Randy's mom a tulip toilet seat.

26. Santa bringing Randy's dad an Aircap 2 - strongly reminiscent of a chemical warfare mask.

27. Playing Battle of the Sexes with everyone at Randy's house.

28. Discovering that Cory is rather metrosexual, and thus knew many of the answers to the female questions.

31. Celebrating our fourth anniversary!

34. Nearly running out of gas on our way back to Kansas City, but fortunately just making it to a gas station in Topeka.

38. Graffiti in a Kansas bathroom: "God is the reason for the season," except "God" was crossed out and "Jesus" was written above it.

70. Randy's dad saying he wanted a 52" plasma TV for Christmas, and Wendy telling him that all we could find was the 56" one, which wasn't what he asked for, so we didn't buy it.

76. Walking down the aisle at Wal-Mart with Wendy and Abby and hearing a little boy say, "Mom, that lady is cute! Both of those ladies are cute!"

80. Getting home and discovering that our suitcases had been searched.

(Which surely had nothing to do with...) 82. Wendy having her Miss Army knife confiscated by Midway security.

The Trip to Chicago

Recently, Wendy read in a magazine about a couple that, to pass the time on their flights home from vacations, would take turns writing down a memory from their trip until they had come up with 100 memories. We decided to give this a shot when returning from Chicago. Just so you know, it takes MUCH longer than you would think to do this. Here are some that we came up with:

10. Quinn, my new boss's 3 year old daughter, burping loudly during dinner, laughing, and saying "that blew my hair back!" (Andy and his wife Amy were appalled and are now trying to find out who taught her that.)

12. Accidentally banging my head on a shelf in our new townhome, right after the real estate agent said they were looking for someone who would take good care of the place.

37. Our waiter at Pizza Hut being very nervous and eager (it was his second day of training).

38. Hearing the supervisor at Pizza Hut tell an employee: "Can you change the sign outside to say Hoppy Easter? I know, it's retarded."

39. Driving by the Pizza Hut later and seeing the sign say "Hoppy Easter!"

49. Seeing a Stanley Kubrick look-alike at Lake Michigan driving very slowly around the parking lot in his truck.

56. Andy asking Wendy if she'd read any good computer books recently ("System Administration? Code Complete, 2nd Edition?").

57. Wendy lying and saying "Of course!"

59. Taking the scenic route back from Lake Michigan to Crystal Lake.

60. Getting lost on the scenic route.

76. Leaving the hotel room to go take pictures of McHenry and almost forgetting to bring the camera. Then getting to the hotel lobby and realizing we somehow still forgot to bring the camera.

100. The pilot on the flight back to Denver announcing that Illinois had beaten Arizona in overtime.