Step 1: Open MouthStep 2: Insert Foot

OMG. I have an announcement to make.

I... am an idiot.

I just made myself look like a huge horse's patootie. This definitely would have been deserving of one of those "Stupid Kevin Tricks" emails I used to send out to family and friends to highlight what a colossal moron I can be at times. Hang on, and I'll get to that part of the story in a minute...

So tonight was our wardroom Christmas party at our CO's house. It was a holiday martini themed party with a gift exchange, so we got a babysitter. Had a great time at the party. The CO set up two activities to start. First there was a worksheet of riddles for Hawaiian sayings. There were like 28 to guess, and LW and I got 16 right. The winners got 20 right and won some Godiva-chocolate covered pretzels. Then there was a list of Christmas song titles that had been swapped out with synonyms, and you had to guess the Christmas song titles (like "Quadruped with Crimson Proboscis" for "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.") There's a description of the game and a list of these alternative carol titles here.

After the two ice-breaker activities and a bunch of AWESOME food, we did the gift exchange.

Aside: I can't imagine where YS learned this new word in his vocabulary. We were out doing some Christmas shopping yesterday, and I was surprised to hear my 3-year old YS use the word "AWESOME" in two sentences in a row. We were in the toy aisle looking at attack helicopters and Star Wars toys. It was the first time I had heard him use the word, and he said it with such emphasis... it just sounded really familiar... like I was listening to a tape recording of myself even. Odd. Anyway, back to the story...

The gift exchange was one of these things were everyone drew a number. #1 got to pick a present out and unwrap it. #2 could either steal #1's gift, or pick a new present out to unwrap. #3 could steal either #1 or #2's gift, or open a new one, and so on. If you had a gift stolen from you, then you got to pick another gift - either a new wrapped one or you could steel one, but not the one that just got stolen from you. After a gift got stolen 3 times, then it was "dead" and could not be stolen anymore.

The hottest gifts that got stolen a couple of times were:

• Starbucks gift card
• Bottle of wine with some submarine wine glass markers (little ID tags to keep track of whose glass is whose)
• A pair of colorful champagne flutes
• Wood dolphin serving dish
• Best Buy gift card

The CO said next time he does this, he's going to make a new rule with regard to husband-wife teaming on stealing things. There were a few interesting interchanges that went down. The first one was when the Eng got the wine bottle with the submarine wine glass tags. When it came to Dave's turn, Dave stole the gift from the Eng. When it came to the Eng's wife's turn, she stole the gift from Dave. Then Dave's wife started talking about how she knew what she was going to steal when it came to her turn. Well, then someone stole the Eng's next gift after that (I forget which one it was), so the Eng had to pick again. Then he and his wife came to the realization that if he stole the wine gift from his wife, then it would have changed hands 3 times and could not be stolen anymore. So he "stole" the wine from his wife and it was "dead" and they got to keep it.

Then the CO's wife got a Best Buy gift card. You don't have to read many of my blog entries to figure out that I love Best Buy. So it came to my turn, and I stole the Best Buy gift card. The CO wasn't very happy (his wife would never do anything with it, so in essence it would be his if she had kept it). I was very happy and didn't think anybody else would want it besides the CO. Low and behold, one of the JO's wives stole it from me. So I had to pick out another gift, and I couldn't steal the gift that had just been stolen from me. Following in the Eng and his wife's footsteps, I stole the coffee and biscotti gift from my LW, and my LW then stole the Best Buy gift card back for me. (Insert sinister evil naughty laugh here - AH-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!). I think if we were to do it again, it would be a good idea to add a rule that you can't steal from your spouse.

Like I said, we had a great time at the party and came home. It was very dark and raining off-and-on, so I offered to give our new babysitter a ride home because she lives on the opposite side of our housing area from us several blocks away. We pulled out of the driveway, and I was being blinded by our neighbors' Christmas lights and decorations across the street from our house. LW and I had recently discussed how there's always someone on the block who feels the need to go over-the-top on decorating for the holidays. So I made a joking comment to our babysitter along the same lines of how there's always gotta be someone on the block who feels the need to overdo the Christmas lights. (I'm sure some of you already see where this is going...). So we drive on over to the other side of housing. The street she lives on had a lot of houses with NO lights, and one or two houses with a simple string of lights along the gutter...

and then there was this one house that really stood out from the rest...

I started developing this sinking feeling in my stomach...

I kept waiting for her to say, "This house right here," but we kept progressing down the street closer and closer to the house that was lit-up like Vegas...

I felt like everything slowed down to slow-motion and I started muttering to myself in my head, "Self, no... no... no no no no no... NOOOOOOO!"

Yep, you got it Toyota. We got up there toward the end of the street and I gulped and asked which house, and she pointed and said, "The one with the lights." OMG how humiliating. I feel like SUCH an idiot. New Balance shoes are great for running, but they aren't very tasty.

On a positive note though, this marks another milestone this PCS move. Each time we go to a new duty station, it's a challenge to find a good babysitter you know and trust and that the boys like. Our babysitter tonight seemed really nice and seemed like she did a good job (we'll get the after-action report from the boys when they wake up in the morning). If she'll ever forgive me for my crass comment about obnoxious Christmas lights, then it will be nice to have her back so LW and I can go out on occasion sans little boys.

Shifting topics - I miss KLOVE. I listened to KLOVE all the time in my car up through last Tuesday. Unfortunately, the storm that knocked down a lot of trees and power lines and left my poor LW stuck at home with the kids without any electrical power on Wednesday also did something catastrophic to KLOVE. The power came back, but KLOVE never did. I wonder what happened to the transmitter and if there's anything we can do to help. I wrote them an email to ask.