I'm sure we'll have many, here's mine

My SO had off of work on the 24 and 25, which is actually pretty great since usually he has to work a half day on the 24. Now he's in the "negrera" which is where he'll be working like 14 hour days (including Saturday and Sunday, he worked last Sat and Sun too). He may have off on the 31 and 1. But it's not guaranteed. Have I ever mentioned how much his job sucks? Anyways... Here in CR Christmas is celebrated on the 24, which is how I think it is in most Catholic countries. (any input on this anyone?) So on the 24th we went over to my SO's grandma's house. This was a big freaking deal because my SO's mom and dad were also coming. They haven't spoken to my SO's grandma in over a year because of some serious family drama.

And everything went great! Imagine that! I'm so happy that it's one big family again! My SO was really happy to see his family hanging out and being good to each other again. My SO's sister gave out gifts to everyone! I couldn't believe it. I totally felt like an ass hole when she and her boyfriend walked in with all these gift bags. They were the only ones that gave gifts, but still.

So dinner was great. But I am going to be a bitch for a moment. My SO's aunt is the most awesome lady in the world. She is giving and wonderful and nice and beautiful and just a freaking great person. Aaaaand she somehow gave birth and raised one of the most awful people on the planet. I guess my biggest gripe with the daughter is when she is bad/mean/rude to her mother. At the dinner the daughter made mashed potatoes and rice. Everyone was like "OH YOU'RE SUCH A LITTLE CHEF!" (this girl is 22). Boiling potatoes and then mashing them is not hard. Neither is adding water and rice to a rice cooker. I don't know. It just pissed me off a little. It must be because I already don't like her that things annoy me when they shouldn't.

Then on the 25th my SO's sister and fiance decided to have everyone over for coffee (that's a thing they do here. Costa Ricans love their coffee and so they always invite people over for coffee and it usually includes snacks, cookies, little sandwiches, etc) I talked for a while with my SO's grandma which was an accomplishment on my part because she speaks a very very old, country, slang Spanish. I was excited we communicated so well!

My SO's sister's fiance is this ridiculously wealthy guy. So he had these magazines of "The Best of the Best" that my SO and I were looking through. There were Ferrari's and giant diamonds (I kept joking with my SO "so this is my engagement ring, right?") and expensive cigars. Then we got to the watches, yes an entire section on watches. This is something this guy likes a whole bunch. We were looking at one and he says "that watch costs around $300,000" just causally. I was like WHY??!!! He says "well it takes almost 2 months to make one". Yeah but still! Turns out it wasn't $300,000, it was $450,000!!!! FOR A WATCH. Anyways, it was fun to look through that magazine! There was even a section on pens. One pen cost $90,000. For a PEN! (my favorite ad in there was one that said "Envy is the other guy's problem" )

This fiance obviously has rich friends too and while we're sitting and drinking coffee he says "we should all go on my friend's yacht this weekend" Umm, DUH we should! I think it's not so much a yacht as a boat, but still. Pretty sweet. My poor SO will probably be working and I feel bad for him, but I wanna go on the boat! It's awesome having rich friends

(My SO later told me about some shoes that the guy had. I've already seen his sting-ray boots [yes, boots made from sting-rays] and I almost had to leave the room it made me so mad! How can someone be okay with that? Well turns out not only does he have sting ray boots, he also has python shoes and ELEPHANT shoes. WHAT THE FUCK? Isn't that ILLEGAL??!! Man that's why he showed them to my SO in secret because he knew I would flip my shit. This rich guy is a really, really great guy. He really is. He's so charming and funny and giving. But I lost a whole bunch of respect for him. Python shoes??!! Elephant shoes???!!!)

The booze came out and eventually my SO and I headed home. We skyped my family back home and played Trivial Pursuit with them via skype. It was a lot of fun! My SO is sooooo good at American pop-culture. He helped with a lot of questions. It was funny because the last question (for the win) started with "Which Central American country..." and then everyone busted out laughing! What luck! So the question was "Which Central American country draws millions of pilgrims every year during Easter Week?" Even I knew the answer to that one I'll put the answer at the bottom in case you guys want to guess. jeje

OH! To try to include my SO's family a bit into the wedding (since none of them will be there, which I think is shit. I mean obviously my SO's sister and fiance have the money to buy a freaking ticket. But they didn't. I think that's bullshit, but my SO doesn't care) I brought over my completed bouquet yesterday to coffee. They all loved it (or at least acted like they did). My SO also WORE his ring. I said to bring it over in a little envelope but he loves it so much he wanted to wear it. Everyone liked it and his mom was certainly swooning over her son wearing a wedding ring. jeje (also the jerk cousin I talked about before had nothing but shit to say, as usual. She said it was bad luck to wear a ring before being married and it was tacky that we didn't have matching bands. Screw you.)

I've also been doing some exercises to attempt to prepare myself for 4 days of skiing. Every day (for 5 days) I've been doing squats, wall-sits and lunges. I've been increasing them too. My SO is a meat-head jerk and is like "that's not going to do anything". It might not do much, but you know what really won't do anything? Not doing anything! So at least I'm trying. I was planning on running but I've had this awful cough for over a week now and there's no way I can run with it. I'm hoping it'll at least give me some abs after all this coughing

I suppose that's it to the story. My SO is back at work today

Hope everyone had a good Christmas! I need to get my ass out of bed and take a shower!

(answer: Guatemala!!)