Once upon a time, there was an Enchanted Castle...

Having Sydney, Michelle, and AJ visit was soo much fun. I met them after my half day of work on Thursday at Enchanted Castle. I hadn't been there in forever and it was nice to have someone with us that would actually appreciate the crappy prizes you can get with the tickets you win. AJ actually got a pretty cool car with all of our hard-won tickets though. It flips over and goes the other way when it bumps into things. Except the front of couches...then it gets it's front end stuck under the couch...but it's still cool.
Let's see, Friday, what did we do on Friday...
Oh yeah! I can't believe that I almost forgot! I had the stomach flu and laid around in and out (mostly in) of the bathroom Thursday night and all day Friday! That was uber fun! I won't go into any more detail except to inform you that I won't be eating red pasta sauce anytime soon, so yeah.
Saturday, we headed to a couple of stores in the coutlet mall, then went to Chili's where we ordered waay too much food (yay for leftovers!) then headed over to Dad's for a couple of hours of quality nap-less AJ time. He continued practicing for the WWF or whatever they call it these days by body slamming Grandpa and the floor. Good times.
We sent Michelle and AJ home on Sunday and Sydney and I made the rounds during the Super Bowl. The commercials were ok, though the E*Trade baby ad was hysterical! But in the end, who really cares about the Steelers or Cardinals anyway? Not me!
Sydney went back to NYC on Tuesday but we've heard a lot from her since then as she's been busy preparing her taxes! I finished filing mine last week and look forward to the larger than expected deposit that should appear in my bank account this Friday (fingers crossed!) while cursing the fact that I had to pay the state of Illinois $1. It doesn't even matter that it's only $1, I didn't want to pay them on principal. But since I figured if I didn't pay them their $1, they would fine or arrest me on principal, I paid the stinkin' $1. But I didn't enjoy it, so there!
I finished the third chapter in my accounting course before everyone came to visit because I didn't want to have to work on it while they were all here. It was due the day after Sydney left. I tried to hold off doing chapter 4, but I couldn't resist and finished the homework and two quizes last week (it is due this Wednesday) and went ahead and did the first of two exams for the first Unit (chapters 1-4). I have to do the second one but considering I have until next Wednesday and that I missed 3 pts out of 150 on the first one, I'm not in a hurry. I'm thinking of emailing the prof and asking if I can just work at my own pace (aka ahead of the syllabus) and finish the course work early or if that would somehow screw her up. We'll see what she says.
So all in all, things are going well. I'm getting ready to plan a trip to visit Sydney for a long weekend in the next couple of months, yay! I'm glad that (thanks to airline miles!) we've been able to see her so often since she moved out to NYC. That's also a benefit of her job, she has downtime between shows so she can travel without taking extra time off. It makes having less time at the holidays if she's working easier to handle.
Oh, best news yet is that we are officially running on our new hours at work which means NO MORE SUNDAYS!!!! We also close an hour earlier Monday - Thursday and on Saturday we close an hour earlier and open 30 minutes later!!! Woo freaking hoo dudes! Right now I'm super excited. If I start getting less hours because of it, MB's gonna have some issues. And I swear if one more customer sees the new hours and says, "Oh, you were open on Sundays?", I don't know what I'll do, but it will probably cost me my job...