Oh, wait. That wasn't interesting at all.
After I picked Carrie up from work she went and hung out with Linnea for a bit, then at 5:30 the two of us drove up to my folks' place in Federal Way slash Auburn. We then (all seven of us) piled into a van for an uncomfortable ride out to Issaquah of all places, to have dinner at XXX Root Beer (pronounced "Triple-X" like the movie). There were navigation woes due to the fact that Mike printed out directions, but our mom decided to go a different way, so a left turn was made when a right turn should have been, and then the street numbers were going the wrong way, so a couple of U-turns were made unnecessarily. My family always gets like this when driving around—everybody thinks they know the correct way and just cannot sit back and let one person drive and one person navigate. Susan, Carrie, and I were all sitting in the way back of the van, though, so we were much more able to watch than get drawn into it all (although I did get a little drawn into it at one point) through our "invisible curtain."
XXX is quite excellent (notice I refrained from putting two extra X's into "excellent"). It's a 50s-style diner that boasts the biggest freakin' root beer floats I've ever seen. Hugenormous. Their burgers ain't nothin' to laugh at neither. I had the "Tri-Power," which was a burger patty, a slice of ham, and some bacon. I got the "regular" sized root beer float, which is still a lot bigger than most places. But Mike got the XXX Super float, which is just enormous. They put a scoop of ice cream on the rim of the mug like a garnish.
The way home was much better than the way there due to the fact that we already knew where we were going, and us kids were all a little loopy from too much food and ice cream and root beer. Also, Susan's new character of "The Almost-Home Gnome" provided plenny of hilarity.
We opened presents shortly after getting back home (after I made a rush trip to the bathroom). The present I ordered for Mike hasn't shown up yet, even though I ordered it a long time ago. So to tide him over I painted (earlier in the day, not right then) a tiny canvas robot, which also happens to be my Painting of the Week #5:
I call it "Blue Warningbot" and it's only 4" x 6" (hence "tiny canvas robot" like I said earlier). He also got Kirby Canvas Curse and Animal Crossing: Wild World, which he is hesitant to open because it will consume his life. Carrie & I were too full to eat any birthday cake there, so we were allowed to take some home, which we did. I also snagged my birth certificate and a book of Ukulele chords.
Instead of going straight home, I dropped Carrie off at Asado so she could hang out with Viki and Laura Belkin at Asado for just a bit. She called me to say she was walking back, so I walked towards her and met her halfway home to escort her the rest of the way like the gentleman I am. Yay me!
