January 03, 2011 - Christmas 2010 - Dan Krill's BLOG on BinaryBedlam

Christmas 2010
January 03, 2011 4:00 PM

     Like every year, Christmas break was filled with lots of excitment and packed schedules. It started off with Khine and I celebrating our own little xmas before the flight. We exchanged our gifts and went right to the airport. We landed in Baltimore late at night, picked up the rental car, and went to see Andrew first thing because he lives on the way to York. For the whole first portion of the trip while in York, Khine and I set up camp at Don's guest house which was a huge help because it's close to my family (which doesn't have any guest rooms) and it gives us some quiet time.
     The next morning we woke up at about 5am, after only 4 hours of sleep, and drove down to northern Virginia to visit Khine's aunt. We had a delicious brunch and plenty of chatting. It took only about 2 hours to get there, but the drive back took around 5! The beltway and 95 were bumper to bumper the whole way. Such as waist of time. Next we went for family portraits, then a mini hs reunion at Isaac, which we were very late for. Hannah had to go back to Philly and since we saw her so little Khine and I decided to go with Emmy to take her back to the Lancaster Train Station. On the way there we stopped briefly at Emmy's new place to take a look, then dropped off Hannah, then half way back to York, we find that her train was canceled due to a downed tree! So back to Lancaster we go, then all of us go to Cobblestones for drinks and dancing. The Kurziks were there for a little too.
     Xmas eve was spent mostly looking at various places for our wedding / reception venue. After visiting lots of places around York and Lancaster we think we found the place we want to do it, and it turns out it's really close to home and I never even knew about it, the Moon Dancer vineyard. It's quite a nice place near East Prospect overlooking the Susquehanna River. Afterward we went right to the St John's xmas eve service with Mom. Then we went to Brandon's to see him and dad and Katie. There we watched the CGI version of a Christmas Carol.
     Xmas Morn we exchanged gifts, later I went with dad to the storage to see all his Star Trek stuff. Then I worked on Brandon's fax machine, couldn't make his line receive any, then we went to moms to exchange gifts. About an hour later all of Katie's family came over and we had a huge dinner. Barney played Santa and we exchanged a few more gifts. It was Khine's first time sitting on Santa's Lap! After cleaning up we ate some shrimp, played with Barney's new green laser pen, and went to bed.
     The day after xmas we visited Great Aunt Florence at the Nursing Home, she's doing ok, but starts to retell the same stories after about a half hour. Then we saw grandma cause she lives near by. Mom and Brandon were there. After that we went to Greg and Marsha's to see Jason and Amy Lamontagne. It was nice to see the whole pizza gang again. We went out to lunch at a near by restaurant, Crimson. Immediately after that, we drove all the way out to Shippensburg to visit Grandpa. I tried to break in to the apt building because we wanted to surprise him, but once in, we found a second set of locked doors. While there it snowed 2 inches in York! So on our way back we had to drive extra careful. Since we were now trapped because of the blizzard, Khine and I played xBox Kinect with Don.

     Early the next morning we left York for New York. On the way there I found out that mom wrecked her car. She drove under a tractor trailer at a shopping center. Everyone was ok. New York was not, however. They had just gotten 2 feet of snow! It was a nightmare getting anywhere. It was impossible to drive on most streets as many were snowed shut. Just trying to get to Khine's Mom's place we got stuck twice! Each time to get unstuck took no less than 1.5 hours. We were lucky that we had so much help. People would come out of their houses to help cars stuck in the streets. Once unstuck I gave up and parked the car in a safe place over night. Then the one Indian man who helped push us out took us all out for coffee and cake! Afterward we went back to Khine's mom's then we all walked to a near by Chinese restaurant. After dinner we spent the night at her mom's.
     The next morning we got some soda at the market, loaded up the car, ate breakfast at a corner bagel shop, checked into our hotel, filled up the car with $4/gal gas, returned the car, and argued that we didn't cause the headlight damage to the rental. I got through 2 blizzards, beltway traffic, and NYC driving with out a scratch, and they say I caused body damage. It must have been when all those people were pushing on the car to free us from the snow. Anyway, then we took a shuttle to LGA to catch a bus to Manhattan. After waiting in the freezing cold for about 45min, we find that the bus only takes MTA cards. So we had to go back in to the airport to buy cards, and warm our toes. We went back out again then finally got the bus. Once in MHT, we transferred to a sub and met up with Khine's friends Frank and Sabai. We got some dinner, walked around Bryant Park, shopped at lots of Bead shops, went to China Town for another dinner, then took the subway all the way back to our hotel. We walked the 5 blocks from the station to the hotel in Flushing, there were still a good bit of people, otherwise I wanted a cab cause it get's shady on the side where our hotel entrance is.
     After breakfast we met up with Khine's mom again so that we could take the subway to Rosevelt Island to see her Dad. After visiting I walked around the island a bit for pictures, then we all took the sky tram off the island and went back to Chinatown. We got lunch at a Malaysian restaurant then sent Khine's mom back to her place on a shuttle that goes straight to Queens. Khine and I did a little more shopping while down there, then retired early. We got pizza delivery and hit the hay.
     We got up extra early to try to find a Chinese cab that would take us to Khine's mom's then the airport, but when we got into the cab, he said he would only go to the airport, so we couldn't say our goodbyes. It took us about an hour to get to the airport, then another hour to get through security and the flight was delayed only 30min, so time was a little tight. But the rushing was over once in the terminal. The layover was in Chicago and that went pretty quick despite it too had a delay. When we landed in Nashville, it was about 60deg! It's all over. What a trip. Back to work!

              See all the Pictures HERE!

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