So, I made it to the end of the school year by the skin of my teeth.  I have been working so hard this school year and I've been wearing myself down.  I requested help next year... we'll see what happens.  If I don't get help, I want to transfer to a different school closer to my house.  My last day was Thursday and I crashed after that.  I've got a scratchy throat, a major headache and I've vomited a few times and my stomach hurts.  Not a great feeling.  Right now, I just have a head cold left.  I can't wait until I am back to feeling like myself.   


I missed Chris & Sofia's wedding yesterday.  Nick said it was nice and that I would have had a great time.  I stayed home because I was miserable on Friday/Saturday.  I probably would have ruined it anyway by getting someone sick or coughing through the ceremony.  I am sure I'll see pictures soon.  Nick was a groomsman in the wedding, he's known Chris for ~10 years and I've known him for ~9.  It's hard for me to believe it's been that long.  Nick and I met Sofia this past Fall.  She's really sweet and a great match for Chris. 

I am starting to feel better, but I am still coughing up a storm and my head still hurts.  I think I need more medication.  My mom and newphew are coming up to visit this week.  I'm very excited.  I am starting to feel better every day, so I hope I can keep up! I have a lot more to write about, but life has been busy.  I'll try to write more this summer.  Later!

Lately we've been playing a lot of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga on the Nintendo Wii with our friends Aaron and Michelle.  We've been playing together at least two days a week for the last few weeks.  I have to say that Lego Star Wars is by far the best video game I have ever played on a console.  The control interface is easy to learn.  The story line is followed almost exactly, and when it's not it's only because they added something humorous and unexpected.  I especially enjoy going back to levels that have beaten in story line mode and playing in freestyle mode.  In freestyle mode you can play as any character you have unlocked, and some areas of every level are only accessible to certain characters.  This game could easily keep me entertained for years.

I've also been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 lately.  I got it for Christmas, and I'm still playing it almost daily.  I play that one on my PC though.  It's probably the funnest first-person shooter style game I've played.  Don't get me wrong, I've been playing Counter-Strike since it's early beta days, so I still really enjoy a good game of CS now and then.  Hwoever Team Fortress 2 never seems to get old for me.  I can play it for hours at a time.  And I do.  Almost every night after Kirstin's in bed.

I'm really looking forward to a PC version of Grand Theft Auto 4, since I don't have an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3.  I've thoroughly enjoyed the previous versions of the game.  Unfortunately, rumor is that there won't be a PC version this time.  Hopefully that is incorrect and we'll see something released by this coming holiday season.

Reno's been getting hit with a lot of small to medium earthquakes these last few weeks.  A couple days ago on Thursday there were two that registered 4.2 and 4.4.  Then on Friday night there was a 4.7 quake.  We had some friends over at the time and our house shook pretty good.  It was the first one we'd felt at our house.  I felt the two on Thursday because they happened while I was in town at the office.  Apparently the 4.7 quake managed to do some damage at the homes near the epicenter, but nothing more than cracked drywall and broken dishes.  Some geologists seem to think that one or more of the dormant volcanos surrounding Lake Tahoe could be coming back to life.  Volcano or not, the quakes are weird since they're getting progressively stronger.  Typically the strong quake strikes first and is followed by the smaller ones.  The thing that gets me is that people are freaking out about a 4.7 quake.  Come on people.  Try living in the S.F. Bay Area during the 7.1 quake in 1989.  After being through that quake, I've slept through quakes bigger than the one we had on Friday night.  Anyways....  yes, there's lot of quakes lately, but they're really not that big.  Unless you happen to live in Northwest Reno, which thankfully we don't.

Edit:  About 5 hours after I posted this, we had another 4.2 quake.  Kirstin felt it, but I slept through it.  They say we could see a 6.0 or larger within the next 10 days if this pattern keeps up.

Kirstin's dad had gotten us four tickets to Squaw Valley, so over the weekend we had our friends Aaron and Michelle try to teach us how to snowboard.  It was quite the experience.  The sky was clear, but it was incredibly cold and incredibly windy.  Every minute or so a gust of wind would come and blast ice and snow into our faces.  Since it's so late in the season, the ski runs were covered in ice.  There was hardly any powder to be found.  Despite the conditions though, we still managed to have a good time.  Kirstin actually managed to pick it up a lot easier than I did.  She's always had a knack for that sort of thing.  I, on the other hand, managed to spend most of the day on my ass or face.  Luckily I knew when to quit before I got really pissed off and ruined the day for myself and everyone else.  Aaron and Michelle were both very patient and were good teachers.  I'm just retarded when it comes to anything that requires coordination.  Overall we had a really good day.  It was nice to hang out with friends and try something new.  We defintely felt the consequences of our efforts these last couple days though.  Both of us grunt and groan any time we go to sit down and stand up.  That probably just means we need to be active more often.  I think I'll take it as a sign that I need to relax the rest of the week. 

Kirstin and I have definitely had our fill of wine lately.  A couple weekends ago we got tickets to the Passport Weekend of the Eldorado Hills Winery Association.  We went with my parents and some of their friends, so we had a group of eight people hitting 28 wineries in 2 days.  Yeah... lots of wine.  We managed to buy several really good bottles of wine for decent prices while we were there.  The following weekend we hosted a wine tasting party at our house.  We'd invited about 30 couples to come over.  Only about 12 showed up, but we had a really nice time visiting and trying the different wines and snacks that everyone brought over to share.  The best part was that people left their wine behind when they left!  So I've been enjoying wine in the evenings for the last week since the party.