Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Rebecca and I have decided that this year was a terrible year for movies. After eight months since we've last been to the theaters, we rented Pirates of the Caribbean 2, to see if it was worth it. And I think the first time we watched it we were just as confused as the first time we watched Master and Servant -- totally lost. Not only could we not understand what half the characters were saying, but the plot made no sense. So we watched it again. The next day. And then I think I can reconcile it as being an "alright" film.

The only reason we could fit that film in was because this week was the last of finals for me. Monday, to be precise. And so now I am finished with school until late January; but not finished with readings. I am far behind in theoretical texts, so it looks like I will be reading a large stack of books over the break to catch up. But this week, I relaxed (and took care of errands around the house). We mailed the last of our Christmas presents and did the last of our Christmas shopping. Target lied to me twice this season and a couple other places were out of the thing I wanted as well. I had to change my mind about which gift to give a few times. The most interesting task was trying to figure out what had happened wrong with our State Farm insurance. When we moved in August, we tried to transfer our insurance to a local insurance representative. The guy at the office who handled our case was a disaster and had us close our previous account and open a new account and had really made a mess of our insurance. But we didn't find this out until recently when the bills we received were showing very bizarre amounts -- every bill was different. After talking on the phone with a different representative, I found out that they had fired the guy who had helped us because ... well, because he was a bad rep. And the nice lady on the phone kept repeating that to me. Just so I would know.

But I think we have it all worked out. Not that this was the highlight of our week. No, that was our cook-off.

We decided with some friends of ours at church to have an ol' fashion cook-off -- everyone makes something nice and fancy and we all sit down to eat some good eats. Despite not having a theme (we did a nice southern cook-off with Karl and Angela last year), everything turned out to have fall colors and looked really well together. It was a nice night of good food, good friends, and fun games. We need to do another cook-off soon, but this time we might try to do a themed cook-off, perhaps with one specific ingredient that must be included in all the dishes. Who knows?

Both Rebecca and I are really excited for Christmas. We leave this Wednesday for Michigan to spend the holidays with my parents in Ypsilanti. We've been really good at remembering to read stories and sing songs and read Christmas scriptures from our daily advent book. And this year we even customized the book to include all our favorite Christmas stories. Merry Christmas to everyone, have a great week and we're hoping for smooth travel!