For those of you that can see it, this is my new favorite font. :) It's called Cochin. Cute!

Okay, that was random. :)

GUESS WHAT! Yesterday I went to Nate's house, and I had the funnest time there! And I only hung out with Nate about half the night. LOL.

Let's see. A brief rundown of the night. (Brief? Riiight. :D ) When I first got there, Nate ducked back into his parents' room for a moment, and when he came back out he was holding a gift for me. Awww!!

"I'm sorry I didn't get you one earlier," he apologized.

"I'm sorry I laid a guilt trip on you for it...," I apologized. "I didn't mean to..." Actually, that wasn't entirely true. I had been a little miffed at first, and had thought about oh-so-subtly hinting about it, but I knew that was an unkind thing to do. So I tried to keep my mouth shut. It didn't work. After all the excitement of gift-opening had died down and he probably wasn't even giving it a second thought, I asked, "Did you get me anything?" The minute I said it I wanted to stuff those words right back in my mouth. STUPID! Argh. I make myself so mad sometimes.

Of course he said no, with great embarrassment, and tried to come up with an excuse. That poor guy. I put him through so much.

Anyway. All this made it all the sweeter that he had went out and got me something. I'm willing to bet Kristi put some money in his handand hinted at him quietly that he should "repay the kindness Stephanie has shown us" or something like that. LOL. But, man! He did it. And I couldn't help saying as he walked out with the present, "Oh!! You're sweet."

This must all sound pretty foolish, after my entries from Christmas Eve. :) I'm really sorry. I just can't be consistent in how I feel about him. It's absolutely hopeless.

I'm happy right now, though; I'm gonna stay on that happy note. :)

Okay, so after that little event--by the way, he got me a set of really pretty candles. :D $10 from Wal-Mart--I know, because I got my mother the same thing last year for Christmas. LOLOL!!! This is one of those times when you just say to yourself, "It's the thought that counts." :D So after that, I asked Nate how his Christmas was, etc. Small talk. And then, surprise! Ben shows up!

Ben is Nate's best friend. Ever. They hang out all the time. They play video games all hours of the night. 7 out of 10 times his excuse for not calling me is, "Well, Ben was over, and I just kind of forgot..." LOL. I always accept that excuse. I know Ben's over a lot, and I try to give Nate space for his guy time. It's totally okay with me.

Blah. Anyway. So Ben shows up! I've met him probably, like, 4 times before, but every time it's been only for like 10 seconds. I've always wanted to have a chance to actually hang out with this guy Nate talks about all the time!

{laugh} It was so funny. Ben sat down and Nate went and introduced me to him, yet again. :) He's like, "Ben, this is Stephanie." And Ben answered, "Yeah, since I haven't met her before, you know." Nate blushed, I guess (can't tell with his dark skin :) ), and said, "Oh... That's right... You've met her a couple times, haven't you?" I laughed. "Only, like, four," I said, and Ben and I proceeded to name off the places and times we'd seen each other. It was great! Fun at Nate's expense--but he took it just fine. :)

I immediately liked Ben. (Remember, I'd never really talked wih him before.) He was open and funny and talked just like Nate, except funnier. Nate always has this kind of sense of insecurity about him, I think, at least when around me--which is completely understandable! Ben, being unattached emotionally to me (LOL), was more self-confident, so his jokes (which I'd heard a number of times before from Nate's mouth :) ) came out funnier.

I'm rambling again. I'm sorry; I said this would be brief! :P

They talked about, wow, interesting, Dragonball Z. I didn't know what the heck they were talking about half the time (Kristi knew more than I did!!), but Ben actually explained things for me. That was nice! They are both way into fantasy games and cartoons and books, and I was quite thankful that Ben accomodated for my obliviousness (is that a word?). :D I actually found it quite amusing anyway, because those two together are hilarious! I was laughing the entire time--at them more than with them, usually. {grin} Shh, don't tell. :)

Anyway, finally they stopped talking and started to get out and set up Ben's PlayStation 2 that he had brought over. He had gotten a new game for Christmas, and wanted to try it out with Nate. But it was soon discovered that Ben had forgotten one of the cords needed. The one for the audio and visual connection, no less! LOL!

You should have seen them. It was as if all the air had been taken out of them. They looked positively deflated. I sat there on the couch trying not to giggle too much at their misfortune.

They kind of argued back and forth about it a little bit. Finally Nate convinced Ben to go back to his house and get the cord, and suddenly I heard, "Do you want to come?"

I looked up in surprise. "Sure!" Actually, the idea quite appealed to me. I spend a lot of time at Nate's house, and it sounded fun to actually get out of the house. So the three of us piled into Ben's car and went out to his house. He lives way out in the boonies--that's why they were indecisive about taking the time to go all the way out there to get the cord.

Ben drove crazy on the long, winding country road out to his house. It was so scary but so much fun, too! I was just REALLY glad I wasn't in the front seat. I get freaked out in the passenger's seat doing normal, everyday, in-the-city driving. Here Ben was swerving right and left all over the street and going 40 around corners and stuff!! Aah!! We sure laughed a lot, though. :)

He has a huge house. What in the world would you do with all those rooms? I wonder if maybe he had a big family. I know he has a 26-year-old brother, and some other brothers too. Anyway. I met his mom before, at Nate's youth group, but I totally forgot that I had. So when she asked me out of the blue, "Home for the holidays, huh?" it really took a minute to process that I knew her. I didn't let on, though. :)

When we got back to Nate's house, they went downstairs and played a game of Nate's for a little bit, one where all you do is destroy people and sometimes objects with the gun in your "hands." I hate those kinds of games. I amused myself with Hannah. We looked at a big book of science. Way too many words for her, but we looked at the pictures a lot and I explained some things to her. I'm not a science major (far from it!!) so I couldn't tell her much, but oh well. Then Kevin (Becka's husband--from a couple entries back) came downstairs and invited Hannah and I to play Phase 10 with them.

I agreed, even though I'd only played once before and found it pretty confusing. I told them they would have to teach me how to play.

Long story short... I won. Really good. {grin} Eat my dust!!!

That is a Kristi saying. ;) Sheesh, their family is competitive!! I quickly learned that "pity-me" tactics do not work on them! No puppy dog eyes, no innocent, tragic, "Aw! How come you skipped me??" will eke out an inkling of sympathy from them. :) The extent of the sympathy they bestowed on me, the newcomer, the non-family member, was that I didn't get skipped until about the 4th phase. LOL.

BUT I STILL WON!!!!!!!! HA HA HA!!!!!! :D

We played 6 phases of the game while the boys played Ben's new game in the living room. I had a blast. I'm so glad I went over there now. I think that next week I will pay another visit to them. Oh! But then Becka and Kevin will be gone... Oh, sad! So it won't be quite so fun. But oh well. They deserve another visit. I mean, once in the entire 3 weeks I'm here? Oh, whoops, twice, but that first time (Christmas Eve) hardly counts. Anyway.

Good times, good times! :D

-Stephanie