So, Christmas is officially over

Well, close to it, at least. I'm currently in the process of taking down our sagging tree.

Christmas afforded me the opportunity to get to know pretty much every family member of Matt's & let me just say, he has an amazingly awesome family. I felt very much a part of a family that I'm not officially a part of, and everything ended up being a lot less pressure-filled than expected.

December was also spent attending a handful of Illinois games. In addition to the Arizona game at the begining of the month, I also went to a couple more. Matt, Dan, Brad & I went to see the Illini play & defeat UIC at the United Center in early December. A group of us spent time in St Louis just before Christmas for the Busch Braggin Rights game vs Mizzou (which Illinois ended up winning - feels like it was the last game they won)... Teri and I drove to Cincinnati on the 29th to see the Illinois take on (& lose to) Xavier University. We stayed with Megan & had quite the adventure that night... Teri and I had to wait approximately 2 hours for a cab. After standing on the street corner like ladies of the night, we decided to head to a dive bar about a block away. They ended up calling us a cab while Teri and I chugged as many beers as we could (splitting one each time). After the debacle of a game, Teri and I decided to head to Newport, Kentucky, which just so happened to be right across the river. Perfect. Ended up at some mansion turned into a bar, with a live band playing in the living room. Beers were served in cans, I ordered plain diet cokes and emptied the booze from my cell phone flask into the plastic cup, pretty much in front of the 60-something bartender who just served me. Didn't get to spend as much time with Megan as I had hoped, but greatly appreciate her hospitality.

So, the Illini have lost 3 in a row, the Bears play the Seahawks in the playoffs on Sunday & I'm back to work for the first full week in quite some time.