I'm Never Gonna Dance Again

*It's Char. Yeah George Michael died. Go watch that video of the guy playing Careless Whisper on the saxophone in stores everywhere it's great.**

Day 111 (Monday, December 19^th)

We left Jason's in the afternoon, planning to meet Martin at Peculier Pub in Manhattan around 7 or so.

At a rest stop before getting to New York to see Martin, never get tired of sunsets like these

NYC what what

Lincoln Tunnel

Two of Martin's friends joined us a little after we got to the pub and hung out while we enjoyed beers and food. Martin had to work the next morning so we left at... I don't remember 9 or 10? So we could drive over to Brooklyn where he lives.  (Of course it's fucking new york so we got a stupid ticket which Martin eventually very graciously (thanks again!) gave us money for. It was a hundred fucking dollars. Titslacks. =k)  It took a while to find parking but we found a spot and only had to walk a few blocks to his place, which is super nice! We talked for a little before going to sleep.

Day 112 (Tuesaday, December 20^th)

We lounged around while Martin worked. Karol worked on the blog post and I...read? Fucked around? I don't remember. We did eventually watch an episode of Black Mirror. Fuck, that show is good.

Martin's living room where we lounged

Karol's Martin's bathroom picture

A sweet mirror Martin has in his room...and Karol

So we thought we weren't going to see Tyler because he went to Texas, but SURPRISE HE'S COMING TO NEW YORK.  We took the subway to Manhattan and met Martin at his place of business where ummmmm there's a bar and ping pong table and a freaking christmas tree which according to the next picture was right behind me and I didn't even notice it until now. It was truly an awesome place, super excited that he gets to work there.

Martin bartending for us at work, this picture is sweet

Then we walked to The Winslow to meet Tyler and a few of his friends! We had delicious drinks and scrumptious food. I had a scotch egg and a smoked salmon crumpet. Karol had fish and chips. YUM. We got to meet a friend of his I've heard a lot about and he was great, as was his girlfriend and other friend. 

Freaking adorable 

We then walked to McSorley's, an Irish pub, where the manager (I think) promptly kicked out a table of people who were no longer drinking so we could sit. They have two options of beer, light and dark. There were 7 of us and we started with 16 beers, the man who seated us having carried them all out at once, 8 beers per hand. It was fucking incredible. We killed the first 16 pretty easily and got 16 more. It took a little longer to kill those but we managed. 

8 and 8 (the second round)

After McSorley's we got some Insomnia Cookies before Tyler drove us back to Brooklyn. He gave us our christmas presents from Val, one I should have expected but totally forgot I had mentioned I wanted to Karol, and he told her how badly I wanted it. She got us a present each and two joint presents, we only opened our individual ones and decided to save the joint ones for when we opened other presents elsewhere. 

My fucking RICK AND MORTY GET SCHWIFTY SWEATER I LOVE YOU VALERIE

We said good-bye to Martin since he would be at work when we left the next day. 

Day 113 (Wednesday, December 21^st)

Exiting NYC on the way to NJ

We got to Karol's parents around 2 and greeted his grandma who was the only one home. We took their dog Kiki for a walk to meet Martha who was getting out of school. It was a nice way to greet her : ) and we walked back home and talked and then napped (all three of us were tired as hell) until his parents got home from work. It was so great to see everyone and we just chilled for the night until beddy bye.

Karol's thriving jade plant baby (I'm gonna make them send me a leaf when we settle =k)

Day 114 (Thursday, December 22^nd)

We hung out with Martha until his parents came home from work and we made some pizza! Made our own homemade alfredo sauce and caramelized some onions for it and also had pepperoni. It was amazingly good. 

Pizza Pizza

Karol also epoxied his carving tool (hook knife, darling. =k) into the handle! 

Day 115 (Friday, December 23^rd)

We went through stuff in the car and left some more stuff with Karol's parents (adding to the secret shit room ; ) ) so we could lighten our load. Then we had fun with Karol's presents, Google Cardboard virtual reality goggles from Martin and another pair from Val! 

Google Cardboard!

Haha Martha trying them out, thanks Val <3<3<3

My turn (shootin those fuckin space ships =k)

We had delicious chinese food for din din and hung out all evening! I think this is the night we watched We're The Millers which is a hilarious movie.

Day 116 (Saturday, December 24^th)

We put our sleeping bags outside to air out a bit and then...we forgot about them and it rained over night....womp womp.

Luckily we were at his parents house which had a dryer

So christmas eve is when the festivities occur. We had a huge delicious dinner of at least 12 different dishes (cause 12 apostles or whatever =k), and then we do presents!

Me and Martha : )

SO MUCH FOOOOOODDD YESSSS

We're goobers

Martha did our last names on gingerbread cookies, which was super sweet I wanted to cry - there were many other kinds of delicious cookies they made soooo good

KAROL HAHAHAHAHA before presents

Awesome picture of the tree that Martha decorated

Karol per usual and possessed Martha

We got so much cool stuff: tea, tea infuser bottles, ornaments, rain jackets, trail socks, shirt, and Karol's sweet solar backpack, see below.

WHAT

YEAH

We each got an ornament with our initial to keep on their tree for when we aren't their for future christmases : (

Just...Karol...oh my god

The ornaments, I love this picture

The kids and Babcia 

Mama, Tata and Babcia

Putting their gifts from Karol to good use!

They went to church in the evening and Karol and I hung back and watched Red State. Once they got back we all watched The Martian before going to sleep.

Day 117 (Sunday, December 25^th)

We had breakfast in the morning and started packing up our things. We were going to my cousin's house in Maplewood and had to be there at 2ish.  The car completely stuffed, we said our goodbyes and thank yous for everything. We know we'll see them again, we just don't know when and it's a weird feeling. My dad got to my cousin's right after us and we walked in together and said our hellos. This would be our last holiday at this house, where we've been coming since I was little since they are going to move where my cousin lives in upstate New York. We had a delicious dinner: prime rib, green bean casserole, roasted root veggies, cranberry orange relish, yorkshire pudding, and brussel spouts. Yummo. We had peach cherry pie, flan, and cookies for dessert after doing presents (it was all so good I completely forgot about taking pictures... trust me, it looked as delicious it was =k). We played a few rounds of Scattergories before heading out. I'm really glad we got to have one last christmas here before they left, it was a lovely time. Then we drove to PA where my mom sent us a key to an empty apartment her fiancee owns so we have a quiet place to stay while we're visiting friends and family in Pennsylvania. 

Our apartment for the next week-ish! Thanks mama 

My presents from my dad, the tradition of chocolate oranges still lives on and a flame beanie (I used to be seriously obsessed with flames as a teenager) for nostalgia- thanks daddddddd

Our snack gift set from my aunt, uncle, and cousin, thank you guys!

Our joint presents from Val, a sweet Tesla mug and fucking astronaut cookie and cream ice cream sandwich hahahahaha best gifts ever, I love you

GUESS WHO'S HERE AGAIN IT'S TYLER WITH KAROL'S FORK GIFT IN HIS MOUTH

Bathroom pic at the apartment

So yes, Tyler came over and then remembered that one of their friends from college was around so went and picked him up and went to a diner. It turns out he went to my high school and I vaguely recognized him and he also knew one of my other friends! Small world or whatever they say.

Trivet bathroom pic

Trivet bathroom pic #2

Tyler and David, this fork was in Tyler's mouth the entire time

We dropped David off and then went back to the apartment where we talked to Val on speakerphone. Val we fucking miss you and it was fantastic to end christmas talking to you.

It's beginning to look a lot like fuck this

* It's cold and that's stupid. =k *



Just to reiterate, we had a great time with Henry. Here are some animations that didn't make it in to last week's post:

Look closely.

Schwifty.

,,104 (Mon, Dec 12^th)

I finally made this work!

Here's Charlotte sleeping :]

We basically just went to the mcdonald's parking lot to steal wifi for Charlotte to do last week's post. We hung out there for a little bit then went back to Henry's to finish splitting the rest of the wood (yes, somehow we got through all of it).

We can (did) do it! Like a boss.

After that shite, we had some hoot doogs for dinner and then watched I Love You, Man, which we were happy to see that Henry also found hilarious.

..105 (Tue, Dec 13^th)

It was my birthday! Hoowee. We had some breakfast by ourselves this time. Henry went to work and his mom had some things to do too, so they were both gone almost all day. I think Henry arrived right around sunset. Maybe.

Breakfast of homemade deer sausage (from Henry's uncle) with some cheddar and fried eggs on toast! So good.

Here's a better shot of the wood we helped split and stack.

I picked some pieces from the pile to start new carving projects!

Here's the back of their house, from their backyard (which includes a creek).

We hung our tent's rain cover up to dry and air out from all of our farty sweat.

This was going well until I broke it right near the top. The wood is quite rotten and I don't know how to use an axe.

I made stir fry for everyone for dinner! It was pretty good, probably my best fried rice yet.

I had a nice birthday, especially throwing everyone off and making them dinner instead of the other way around. I was obviously happy to do it and I'm glad it came out well. We hung out the rest of the night, just relaxing. Henry gave me a gorgeous little stone box and his mom got me a hand-painted tree pen. Like an ent pen. Anyway here look I just took a picture:

Thanks again, Henry and Elsie!

Blah blah blah, then we went to bed.

,.106 (We, De 14^th)

I did some more work on the carving and shits, finally made the hole for the hook knife that Nathan made me (thanks again!) but I didn't epoxy it in today. Actually, I have yet to do that. Maybe I'll do it while we're at Martin's in Brooklyn...

Charlotte modeled the tool for me :] Again, that's elderberry wood cause the bark is awesome.

This is a conglomeration of pretty much all I'm working on. Or started working on. It's like 9 different things.

Then we had lunch! At like 3... which ended up being stupid because it turns out that Henry didn't eat at all, saving up his stomach space for some wonderful seafood later that night! It was gonna be like our last dinner and when we first hung out we were going to get seafood but ended up changing our minds like twice before settling on eating at the Devil's Backbone brewery. Anyway, here were our lunches:

Charlotte's second or third meal of chili, cheese, and chips in a hot dog bun.

I had the leftover fried rice which was almost a dinner in itself.

Unfortunately Henry got home like minutes after we finished eating but was graciously willing to wait a little so I could digest some of the crap I stuffed myself with which was nice. So... we went to the seafood place and it was closed. Like maybe permanently. There was paper inside on the windows and everything. So that sucked. We went to Blue Mountain Brewery then, had some dinner there. It was fun, the waiter probably saw us looking at menus and other places to go on our phones, was kinda confused, asked whether we wanted drinks and then whether we wanted the menus taken away... He handled it well enough overall, though he made some weird jokes and had strange attempts at connecting or whatever. Anyway. It was fine. Well, my crab cake sandwich actually was just bland and fish-tasting. Charlotte had the best meal, she had a roast beef sandwich. But even hers wasn't perfect, the bread was supposed to be jalapeno corn bread but it was more like texas toast... so yeah.

Then Henry and I went to the bathroom:

Henry is such a star. (I can't even handle this holy shit Henry what are you doing hahahahahahaha, but yeah you're totally a star : ) -C)

We went to Devil's Backbone again after dinner for mixed drinks cause they didn't serve liquor at Blue Mountain. It was nice, I had a perfect manhattan for the third time ever and it was like the first time I had it - delicious.

This is Henry's friend, TimOthy!

We had some good times, but TimOthy can be a little expressionless.

Charlotte was rude about this activity.

So we went to the bathroom again.

Piss trough!

We actually left as soon as we finished our drinks because apparently they had been "closed" for an hour. The bartender told us that she has to stay basically until the last seated table leaves - they had just left and we all felt bad (despite three other douches sitting at the bar) and left her with a nice tip. Just the tip. I mean we didn't pay for drinks. No, I'm just kidding, we paid for drinks, but we didn't leave her a tip. Haha! Gotcha 'gain. We paid for drinks AND gave her a tip.

On the way home, Charlotte stood up and had her torso up out of the sunroof. That's something she had always wanted to do and I was so glad that she got to do it. We both were thinking about it which is great because I told her what I was thinking and then she actually did it. Pitch black, straight open mountain road. So great. 

We hung out around the fire the rest of the night, until... shit, 4 o'clock? I think Henry and I played Terraria til 4.

.,107 (Th, Dc 15^th)

Last-day-at-Henry's bathroom picture

Elsie had arranged some things on the table the night before and I thought it looked good too.

Henry can fuckin draw, yo! He had taken lessons for years, apparently, and will be drawing me a birthday thing!

For breakfast (around noonish), we had kippers which were quite delicious.

After some sitting around and then packing up, we said our goodbyes and headed off, to Maryland.

Some bathroom along the way, at a rest stop on 95 in NJ.

We got to Jason right as the pizza was delivered and he jumped in the back to direct us to parking!

Jason's bathroom! Wooo. That long sleeve is from Henry! Woowooo.

**108 (F, D 16^th)

Fucking cold. Holy tits. Yes, we slept under there.

We had breakfast (as in we broke fast, as in we ate our first meal) around noonish at a place called Ram's Head, where Jason had a "Ram-mosa" or however the fuck they spelled it. We got groceries after that then started laundry when we got back. I say started because sure we moved the clothes to the dryer and dried them, but we didn't fold them for a long fucking time after that.

Jason and I of course played some video games. Charlotte hung out too, sometimes on her computer also playing games, sometimes reading a book, or doing some other cool shit that I may never comprehend.

We of course played Just Cause 2 again. I landed a boat on top of another boat.

Oh, you know, just holding on for dear life as Jason flies an airplane into the sun.

I found a tank!

We started a new Terraria world and built this house with the new holiday blocks! Then we switched to better characters cause holy shit starting from the beginning just sucks.

We had steak and potatoes for dinner and it was delicious. Jason used a marinade that his family has always used and the steaks were pretty juicy and delicious.

--109 (Saturday, December 17^th)

Another day, another dollar.

Of course I got doiritos, why even ask? Yes, I continue to open bags upside down thinking of my sister Martha.

We watched the first mothafuckin power rangers movie!

We had some snacks while we watched the power rangers and I actually don't remember what we had for dinner...nope wait it was hamburger helper there ya go (lol that's Charlotte trying to rewrite my sentence to make it sound like it's still me hahaha good job). Well, whatever, here are some fridge magnets!

wooooo

~~110 (Sunday, December 18^th)

Feast of french toast, eggs, bacon, and potatoes for brunch.

That breakfast was delicious. We hung out after eating for a little before going back downstairs. I ended up putting on a movie we got recently, Sausage Party. I had that on the tv while Jason and I played Minecraft or whatever. That movie... man holy shit what the fuck. Jason and Charlotte are forever scarred. It seemed like a movie that was made just because hey what a crazy thing if this was a movie that people watched. Well, it was pretty ridiculous. Not sure I recommend watching it. I mean check it out if you wanna see some weird shit and like food porn or whatever. Shit, maybe you'll enjoy the fuck out of it and shit your brains out with joy or whatever. I don't know what you do.

WE GOT JETPACKS

Always a nice time hanging out with Jason. We'll be seeing him again when we pass through on our way to Florida. We'll see Henry along the way, too. But that's after the holidays. Next up is Brooklyn and then we'll be puttering about for christmas and shit.