oscars!

My favorite day of the year isn't a holiday, but it should be!  The Oscars is my favorite event all year.  My hobby through out the year is keeping up on all the Oscar gossip and making sure I do everything I can to see all the movies that might be nominated.  I get up early so I can watch the nominations announced on tv, and listen to hours and hours of podcasts about the Oscars leading up to the big day.  Ever since I was little I've watched the ceremony; it was always a big deal for me and my mom and dad humored me and it would be the one day of the year where I could stay up until it was done, which usually meant 11:30pm or later- which is a pretty big deal to an 11 year old!
Every year I tend to watch it alone, not because I'm anti-social, but because it's really hard to find anyone else who loves it as much as me.  Since getting married, I've roped Diana in to watching it with me, but we've never gotten a group bigger than that together... until this year!  On a whim, we invited Barbara and James- and they accepted!  Well, this calls for a party!  I spent the first part of the day putting together a packet of all the nominees of lesser known categories like 'best animated short' and the like.  I also printed off some extra ballots so everyone could make their guesses before the ceremony and follow along as we watch.  Since we so rarely get to host guests, we went all out and got a bunch of party snacks and hors d'oeurves.
The night went smashingly and we were treated to an amazing show with some great twists and turns at the end.  I was able to see eight of the nine nominees (sorry, JoJo Rabbit...) and even went to see all the short films, live action and animated, in the theater this year!  This was certainly one of the best Oscar days ever!
(more pics)