The Holiday Tornado

It seems like if you blink around mid November, and then open your eyes, you will find yourself taking down Christmas decorations in early January. Every year the holidays come and go like a mid western tornado, and the effects are also quite similar: complete destruction of our house for two months. This year, as we celebrated Noelle's second birthday, and Christmas, we found ourselves being a little more festive. We stopped more often to look at Christmas lights, so Noelle could soak up the holiday spirit. Making a big deal out of little things, like getting and putting up the Christmas tree made our Christmas celebration a lot more special. Though Tami and helped Noelle with the Christmas experience, I think we actually got more out of it than she.

We had a lot on our plate this year. From finals at school, to Noelle's bithday party, to Christmas morning, and all the shopping in between, to supporting my Dad, who had his prostate removed due to cancer (all of this happened within two weeks); we are absolutely exhausted. Nevertheless, this past holiday gave us a chance to reconnect with family members, and that is the real intent of Christmas: to become grounded; not to get caught up in all the wrapping paper and material gifts, but to enjoy the presence of those that are closest to you, and give them the most precious gift possible: which is the gift of love. I wish for one Christmas our whole family could get together and rent a huge cabin up in Tahoe; the only presents we would bring would be ourselves, and a promise to not bicker or argue, but to be completely passive, and tolerant of each other. Someday perhaps...

In other news, Tami is about to pop! We are expecting our baby boy March 3rd. Thank you all for participating in our poll. It's great to see everyone's opinion as far as the names are concerned. Even if you don't like the names, it's good to know you at least thought of us. I really appreciate your coments, too.

Well, enjoy a couple of the hundreds of pictures we took this year. TTFN!