Graduation Celebrations (and weekend in general)

[apple_pathways]

Friday I finished my Christmas shopping: I ended up buying Smart Wool hiking socks and an Adidas ClimaWarm (or something...) winter hat for my brother. For the FSIL, I bought a very cute Reebok jacket on sale:





Also purchased: squishy-warm socks to finish off gifts to the besties, wrapping paper, long-sleeved t-shirt for me, and cleaning products for my aunt's church. (They give them out to families starting over in new housing.) Made it out of the stores and back home just in time to avoid low blood sugar crisis.

Friday night: went out to dinner at Vicente's, a Cuban restaurant in Detroit with my family. Had two (very strong, and VERY tasty) margaritas. I'm not a big mixed drink person (I prefer beer and wine), but I love a good margarita.

For tapas, we ordered goat cheese with tomato sauce, empanadas (chicken and beef), and a dish of shrimp, scallops, calamari, chorizo, and mushrooms in a garlic lemon sauce. They were all fantastic! For dinner, I had roasted pork with mojo de ajo sauce. My mother gave me a diamond and tsavorite garnet ring: green and white, my school colors. (Garnet is also my birthstone.)

Saturday I took my bridesmaid dress in to be altered.





The only alterations necessary were to have the straps shortened. Straps on things are always too long for me...I don't know why.

I also bought shoes to wear with the dress. Erin specified we should wear silver shoes (WHY IT'S A FLOOR LENGTH DRESS WHO CARES WHAT COLOR MY SHOES ARE???), and I don't have any (every other color in the world: YES), so I was a bit annoyed to have to buy some. However, I found a really love pair on clearance at Payless, where I also had a 20% off coupon. HUZZAH, $6.40 shoes!

I spent the afternoon tromping through the snow at the park with my brother's dog.

Saturday night: My friend Fai wanted to take me out to celebrate my graduation. I thought it would just be me and her. Apparently, she had been planning a surprise party since the fall. I was duly SUPRISED, though the shock came slowly, as when we entered the restaurant I caught my friend Lauren coming up the stairs. She said she was sorry to ruin the "big surprise", but my response: "I'M NOT!" Seriously, I'm glad it came in small doses, as I genuinely had not expected anything and didn't know how to react. I was suddenly all quiet and shy for the first 15 minutes (around people I've known MOST OF MY LIFE!) until I ordered a nice, strong margarita to overcome the shock!

Then everyone had me crying at the table over the sweet things they wrote in my cards. People should know, if you're going to say nice things about me: expect tears. LOTS of tears! We had a lovely dinner (Cuban again! What are the odds? But no complaints from me: I had a burrito stuffed with shrimp and Mahi Mahi), and then went back to Fai's for a lovely spread including lots of cheese, fruit, chocolate, and wine.

Sunday: Family Christmas party for my mother's family. The family is HUGE, though three cousins and their respective partners hadn't made it this year. On this side of the family, I have 13 first cousins, and many of the older ones are married with children of their own. Plus my uncle's fiancée's three kids. Plus my cousin's girlfriends two daughters (and they have on daughter together). Plus all the cousins' +1s. Etc. Etc.

• Drank a LOT of wine. Seriously, this weekend was heavy on the wine.
  
• FOOD. Good lord, the food: I am paying for its consumption now. (IBS and holiday spreads DO NOT mix!)
  
• Discussing the finer points of the very excellent film Point Break with my cousins. It's about bank-robbing surfers. It stars Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze.
  
• Oplatek: a Polish tradition where you walk around with large wafers stamped with religious scenes, like so:
  
  You offer the wafer to family members, who break off a piece and share a Christmas greeting (and a kiss!). I would share with you what we say (besides, "Merry Christmas") but I can't spell worth a damn in Polish.
  
• In order to entice the little ones to participate, who are not fooled by this offering of a bland, tasteless "cracker", I started walking around with tortilla chips.
  
• Little Isabel (1) falling in love with Sam (2). She was so taken with him! Following him around, hugging him, trying to climb into his lap whenever he sat down--and him just looking on uncomfortably in wide-eyed terror!
  
• What do you get when you give a room full of tone deaf exhibitionists alcohol and a bag full of tambourines and moroccas? Why, a Schultz family sing-a-long! Chaos reigns for about half an hour as we make up for our collective lack of singing talent with unbridled enthusiasm and a flair for dramatic expression. It all culminates in a rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas wherein the ladies sing the even days and the men the odd, and each group tries to outdo the other to be the most ridiculous. The children add to the ruckus by screaming, whining, and banging instruments. (At least there were no whistles this year...)
  
• This year we started a new tradition: Santa came to pass out toys to the kids! My cousin Patrick played the part (quite well, I might add!), and the shocked looks on the faces of the kids were PRICELESS!
  
• I helped some of the kiddies get their toys out of the packaging: Alexei and Sierra got ZuZu Pets (toy hamsters that run around), Maddy got a dress for her American Girl doll, Milsa got a Barbie whose clothes you can decorate with water-filled pens, little Sam got a Duplo firetruck, Gracie and Luke got costumes for the Build-a-Bears (an angel and a Star Wars clone warrior person), Nick got a Bakugan alarm clock, Andrew got a game of some sort (he was back upstairs to his Wii before I could check it out) and I didn't get to see what his brother Brian got, Isabel got some books, and Matt and Ben got gift cards. (I had already listed everything before I realized that you don't know any of these children and probably don't care what they got for Christmas...oops.)
  
• Luke (6) informed me of how the Star Wars costume he received for his bear would enable said bear to protect him at night from some unnamed menace which lives in his closet.
  
• I had a very enthusiastic conversation with Sam about his fire truck, only about 30% of which consisted of actual words. (It had some awesome flashing blue lights.)
  
• Baby kisses from Isabel!
  
• Will see many of the family members in a couple weeks at my brother's wedding.
  
  
  And now I should be off to bed: too much food, too much wine, but many, many good times!

Comments

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

This sounds like an awesome weekend!

I do like the bridesmaid's dress! And hurrah for cheap shoes!

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Yes, the dress is very nice--she did a great job picking it out! I'm just now realizing, though, that my brother is getting married in TWO WEEKS, and there's so many details I need to get sorted.

At least I will have something to wear, though. ;)

[lemniciate.livejournal.com]

That sounds like such a fab weekend! Oh man, I've not had lunch and all that food looks so tasty :Q___

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

My stomach is still recovering! But screw it, it was worth it!

[sabriel75.livejournal.com]

Too early for me to think straight... but Yay for all things bright and beautiful especially where family is concerned. That bash must have been amazingly spirited and fun. :D

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I thought of you when Nick unwrapped his alarm clock--my cousin Jen said to him, "This means no more getting up before 6! You don't get out of bed until that clock says 7!!!"

[rewindclunkplay.livejournal.com]

That dress is lovely, I adore the colour!

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was relieved that she picked a color that looks nice against my pale skin! (We're settling into deep winter now--what I call the 'transparent' months where even the lightest 'ivory' foundation makes me look like I've slapped on too much bronzer...)

[curlybeach.livejournal.com]

Aw, this sounds like a lovely few days with a lovely group of family and friends. It makes me feel all Christmassy just reading about it :)

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I do fear it might be Christmas Overload by the time I get to the day in question, but it was a very lovely weekend!