So one of my mom's friends invited us over to her house.  She's really interesting.  She has all this original artwork around her house, and she knows the story to each and every pieces.  And she's a good cook :P


But when we went home, this is the suprise part.  Literally.





I walk in to use the washroom near our kitchen and hear that something's in our kitchen.


I round the corner, and it's my friends from youth.  They set up a suprise good bye party while we were at dinner.  Shari, Grace, Natalia, Abby and Angie, Sierra, Kayla and Grace were there.  Shari, Grace and Kayla had been planning the thing at Drama camp at church this week.  There were posters up for all the holidays I'd miss while I was in Africa.  Ben also presented some stuff like a book to read on the flight (a Robin-Hood redo which looks really interesting) and a Rubik's Cube.  I have the best friends in the world :)

I took the party as an excuse to write my first post on the blog I've had reserved for about six months:

www.outofafrica.wordpress.com

I also have more photos and even (gasp) a video on my Photobucket account:

Suprise Party subalbum

They also gave me this compilation CD with holiday songs (Well, my personal theme song (that being Weird Al's "White and Nerdy") isn't really a holiday song...) with lots of great stuff on it.



So the second purchase (After the Ratatouille soundtrack) I made with my credit card was one I didn't want to make... $200 laptop battery.  Mine only held a charge of 30-45 minutes.  I just got the new one (really quickly.  I ordered it on Sunday) in the mail, and at 75% I have 2 hours left.

But there's another purchase that's coming soon... HP7 is coming out tommorow.  My plan is to skip the midnight releases and stuff and go to Costco or Loblaws, which had them day of release for half the price of Chapters when Half Blood Prince came out.  I preordered and payed about $55, and then got it four days late.  Not doing that again...