the gage of paige: the most wonderful time of the year

Oh Christmas time, oh Christmas time, how lovely are thine family days.

I drove home on December 22nd and was able to spend some time with my friend Mark who I had not seen for three years. It was great to catch up and to see his family. The Biebs came down the next day then the Kutarnas came down on Christmas Eve. The next few days were full of games and a LOT of family time. I had a lot of fun and of course I Skyped with Burns constantly.

It turns out my phone gave a better picture than my computer did on Burns' end. Crazy.

We played Scum, Connect 4, Egyptian Pyramid, Crazy Eights, Chicken Scratch (or more formally known as Dominos) and many other games.

Little Navy was smiling and "talking" the whole time so it was pretty fun to be around her. She showed us what's what when she stood all by herself haha ;)

On Christmas day the Allens came over and Brad broke out his old car. The boys were driving it all over the fields so naturally the girls had to try. I drove for a bit but I was too scared to go really fast. After our driving frenzy we settled down to open prezzies and then we had dinner. Grandma B joined us for the dinner too.

On Boxing Day, Grandma L came by so it was nice to see her. She left then the fam all went to the annual Boehme Boxing Day reunion potluck. That night I drove to Calgary for my GRE the next morning. I left Kobe behind in Raymond so I was pretty lonely for the night. My roommates were out of town for Christmas.

My test started at 7:30 on the 27th and I had to be there at 7:00. When I got there, there were two other people waiting outside the door. We were told to be there a half an hour before the test started so we were all getting a little anxious. That was the only and last day another girl and I could write the test so we were kind of worried. Another girl showed up to write the test then the instructor finally showed up 10 minutes late but everything turned out just fine. Man those test people are sure strict when it comes to cheating. We weren't allowed to take ANYTHING in the testing area except our clothes. I had to take my watch off. These people are serious. I even had to turn my pockets inside out every time I entered the testing area.

In the first section I wrote two essays. One was on whether or not the government should provide free tuition to those who could not afford it. I had to support/disprove an argument on the second essay. I had 30 minutes to write each essay. I think I did alright on both. The rest of the test was alternating between math and verbal reasoning. I think I bombed the math section but the verbal reasoning I think was okay. I was finished by 11:30 and was able to leave Calgary by 12:00. I got back to Raymond that afternoon and was able to relax a bit after that endeavor.

Alberta skies really are great. I was appreciating the open fields and the beautiful skies all the way to Raymond. It was a pretty great and very fast drive.

Nitty was being funny almost the whole time she was down there. I think her favorite pass time was bugging Kobe haha.

We made Marshie into a hipster one night. The cardigan and scarf are both girl items of clothing but hey...isn't that what hipsters do?

And did I mention that the whole week I was there, the wind did not stop blowing?!?! It was extremely disappointing for me especially because I got my parents Blongoball for Christmas. AKA Ladder Golf. It's an outdoorsy game so we didn't really want to play in the wind. The morning that I left for Calgary the wind FINALLY stopped blowing. My parents had about a half an hour before they had to go to work so we broke out the game girls (my mom and me) against boys (my dad and Marshie). The boys won by one point.

I also dyed my hair back to dark brown. The red was fun but it's nice to be normal again.

On the 28th Marshie and I went bowling.

That's right. I won.

I waited and waited and waited and waited aaaaaaaaaaaaalllllll day for Boonie to get to Raymond! His parents dropped him off and he was just in time for dinner. Then next day the three of us went swimming at the Holiday Inn (formerly known as the Ramada Inn).