Happy 2008

So our upstate plans didn't fall through after all.

Matt and I left for Albany about 4:30pm on the 31st and (despite a long stop at Stewart's-- my favorite upstate store after Wegman's-- for eggnog and soda, and besides the fact that Laura gave us bum directions and had us driving all over downtown Albany-- three exits too early on the Thruway) we got to the Robertson house about 7:30pm.

Movies and board games, giant puzzles and a toast at midnight all led to a fabulous laid-back new year's celebration with my girl and my guy (and my girl's mom and grandma, too!).

I ended up falling asleep in the middle of Lord of the Rings, so we closed the evening about 2am, and the three of us slept in Laura's room. When we woke up in the morning it was already snowing, so I tried to hurry myself and Matt into leaving pretty quickly but the snow had already started to accumulate. Driving around in the Albany/Schenectady area was the worst-- the roads were terrible with snow and slush and the car we were using slid around a bit despite my slow driving. But when we hit 87 it wasn't as bad and we could pick up our speed a bit more safely.

Until the traffic hit that is. What should have been a two to three hour drive home ended up taking over six hours. I think there must have been a bunch of accidents (that we saw no evidence of) because there were just so many cars on the road all driving really slowly through some parts and then getting up to a good clip at other parts along the way and then slowing down to painful speeds all over again. And the road conditions were fine at that point, so I'm not sure what was going on. What I do know is that we spent so much time sitting around in the car driving 4 miles per hour that every time we hit a rest stop I had to pull off to pee. I hadn't even drank that much juice with breakfast, but we were spending so many hours pretty much idling along that my glomerular filtration caught up with our miles traveled per hour and led to stopping at every single rest stop along the highway from Laura's house all the way home. It was pretty impressive, actually.

Anyhow, we're all home now, but Matt has to go back to his parents' house tomorrow, and then I have to go back to work on Friday. Boo. This was a nice bunch of days off though, and I'm glad I had the chance to rest and visit with Matt and a whole other bunch of friends (Melissa and Brian along with Tara Osterhoudt last week, Laura and Elena this week) while celebrating the holidays and the new year.

Happy 2008 everyone!