Hi everyone! I am ALL done with finals and papers and classes! YEAH! My finals this semester were by far the hardest I've EVER taken - one of the finals ended up with a class average score of 65%! OUCH! To celebrate (and as part of a lingering birthday present), I went to the Nutcracker Fantasy last night at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. IT WAS AMAZING! We started with dinner at the Capital Grille, which is right next door. The prices were fairly steep but the food and service were incredible.... I'd go back again in a heartbeat. Back to the show...WOW! I love the Nutcracker music and dancing and seeing the show yet again reaffirmed why it is my favorite. This was a (mostly) local production and let me say that Minnesota has some great dancers.

As for the rest of break, I plan on doing a whole lot of nothing. I'm heading home to Wisconsin today for the holidays and plan to return early next week and not move from my bed for a few days. I've found this semester to be particularly hard to "unwind" from and so hopefully my brain will starting turning off in the next few days here. That could be a good thing though, at least through the weekend, because I'm still very far behind on Christmas shopping! My problem is that I see the mall parking lot and people running around and just turn right back around! Somehow I don't think my family will appreciate that as an excuse for no presents.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend and break, talk to you soon!