Party!

It's really hard to coordinate schedules over the holidays because everyone has shopping to do, spouses/significant others to share their time with, and parents to please, so we knew it would be hard to get the entire gang together to see each other before Christmas. Sonia was kind enough to offer up her house, and we all headed that way a few days before Christmas. Tien flew in a few hours before the get-together, so Horia, Caroline, Conor and I met her and Isaac at Yea's Wok in Newport. I had never eaten there before - it was tasty!!!



After dinner, we headed to Sonia's new condo in the Newcastle area. You see, we always have great intentions. My friends and I don't try to be this way, we just like each other too much. Sonia invited her friends from high school, work, sports, and from various facets of her life, and the proper thing to do would be to mingle and get to know each other. Not us. We always seem to do it, no matter where we are. In under an hour of getting to Sonia's, Conor, Corene, Tien, Isaac, Brandi, Heidi, Caroline, Horia and I were sitting in Sonia's stairway hanging out and being just about as anti-social as you can get. We are horrible when we're together. But, I must say we had a great time catching up and just "hangin' around!"

I took a lot of pictures, but there is really only one that is blog-worthy. I got some serious unflattering photos of the rest of us, so I'll leave them out of my post (you can thank me later friends.) But, this picture of Brandi and Heidi cracks me up, because both knew their angles in this picture and moved around for the perfect picture. Good stuff.



Funny story - ArenaNet is where Horia and Sonia work. Every year they are given a christmas bonus which make us peons very jealous - 2 years ago was the PS3 and rock band. Last year was a sweet ArenaNet bag and a Kindle. This year was - drum roll please - LETTERMAN'S JACKETS! It was pretty comical. The best part is, they also were given a second letterman's jacket for their significant other. So, Sonia asked everyone to bring their high school letterman if they had it. Brandi wore her college coaching jacket, and she let Heidi borrow her RHS jacket. Some of Sonia's friends are on a softball team together, and when they saw Heidi in the jacket, they started asking her about all of her softball patches (side-note for those of you that don't know Brandi - she rocks, basically. She played softball for University of Pacific in Stockton, CA and after coaching at UW for a while, she now coaches at Harvard. Yes, I said Harvard.) Heidi basically pretended to be Brandi the entire night and made up all these amazing plays, catches, and state tournaments as if she was Brandi (although, in Heidi's defense, she was great at softball in high school too.) It was hilarious for us over in the secluded staircase, and as we were leaving, they all shouted "Bye Brandi - let us know if you want to play on our softball team this season!"

Thanks to Sonia for letting us commandeer her awesome condo! Thanks to my friends for continuing to be a Monopoly in the friend division.