2008 Year in Pictures

I always make it a point to give Darcie a year in review - but since the picture frames are taking over our house (and since we enjoy sharing our story on the ol' blog), I thought I'd try a video this year. Many thanks to the folks at Animoto for the cool video stuff and to Steven Curtis Chapman for such a great song. Hope you enjoy the look back at such an amazing year! Merry Christmas!

Oasis

I'm basking in the glow of what is the approaching Christmas break.  I just wrapped up my 7th semester of the Forge (geeze!) and I have some serious plans to sleep for the next 3 straight weeks.  Don't blame the students - they have really been an exciting and engaging group this year.  It's just been a long fall.  Lots of life lessons, struggles, bewilderments and sleepless nights (thank you Heidi), but I've made it to the oasis of Christmas - 3 glorious weeks of finally getting the chance to process my own thoughts and get caught up on all that I've fallen behind on.

I'm also looking forward to celebrating 6 years of being married to Darcie here in a couple of weeks.  That's like 12 semesters + a lot of summer school!  It's great to see her shine as a mommy.  She loves it (and Heidi does too) and I don't think she realizes how much it makes her shine to me.  Just another bonus of having a child, I guess.  :)

Darcie and I are hoping to be able to take a short vacation for our anniversary, but a 5-month old and a 1 year old dog present quite the challenge to that endeavor.  We'd really like to go skiing - mostly because neither of us have been since high school and we have friends up in Colorado.   Hopefully we'll work something out!

I'm also sad to report that my Fantasy Football team failed to make it to the Super Bowl again this year.  It was a good season - finished up 9-5 on the year, but my players underperformed all season and I just couldn't catch a break when I needed it most.  Still so fun to play, though, and look forward to next season.

...speaking of next season...only 1 month until Lost season 5!  

4 months old!

Heidi had her 4-month checkup last week, and we can't believe how fast she's growing!  She is so much fun now, laughing and "talking" and interacting with us and her toys so much more now. One of her favorite new activities is jumping in her bouncer seat that I got at the children's consignment sale (which is one of my new favorite things... the bouncer and the sale!)  

We had a great time with families over Thanksgiving, and we're looking forward to Christmas already.  Heidi has a little cousin, Meredith, on the way - probably at the end of December, and another one due in June, so we're excited to welcome more babies to the family.  So far, there will be 4 girls and 1 unknown.  If it's a boy, he'd better look out!