A New Year!

Well, it's a New Year!

There's been a lot going on lately. For those of you that have been saying, "what's up" well, there's so much that I hope to include. First off, the pic above is with our new digital camera! That's right, we finally joined the digital age and hopefully I'll be able to update a few more photos of fun things (like sites from the Bay Area).

Since my last post ... I had a birthday. It was fun (I actually was awaken at 7:30 a.m. because of a dead battery in a vehicle ... not fun). I wrote about 42 pages of papers in two weeks (one of which allowed me to quote Yoda). I managed 4 weeks of Children's Theater productions (yes, I literally was herding cats). I celebrated Christmas in two states (the question is are those geographical or mental). Visited the snow-covered land of Minnesota (oh, how I miss winter in the Midwest ... well, except for the slushy roads that spray all over the car impairing vision).

Alright, a lot more happened, I saw my nieces and nephews, I watched a wonderful theatrical performance of A Christmas Carol, I rung in the New Year, I ate and ate and ate, but I digress. I want to add to a few of the highlights.

1. Eating Chinese on Christmas Eve is not all it's cracked-up to be. The plan was to grab a quick bite to eat between the two Christmas Eve services. The plan seemed easy enough, service at 7:30 and 11:00 pm left plenty of time between services ... except that in the wonderful Suburb of Concord, CA pretty much every restaurant closed by 9pm on Christmas Eve ... and they were in no mood to stay open a minute later for a few hungry wanderers (hey, c'mon, my wife is pregnant) so we drove until we found the welcoming neon glow of a Chinese Restaurant ... we had to laugh (especially with my obsession with A Christmas Story) we ordered up some Hunan Beef and Crispy Duck ... both fairly oily concoctions, but calories to keep us going.

2. Opening Christmas gifts is always a joy. Let's be honest, giving gifts is fun, but getting new things is even funner (yes, I know, funner is not a real word). I always have some list of things I really want but I'm always surprised when people come up with ideas that weren't on my list but still really cool. And as always, gift cards are fun ... I know, they aren't always the most personal gift ... but they travel well (try packing a full set of frying pans 8-13" in your suitcase) and you get to do one of my favorite things ... SHOP with someone else's money.

3. Traveling. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Put me on an airplane and I'll go anywhere. (proven by my job a few years ago that put me on a plane to Springfield, Illinois where every passenger commented, "this is definitely the smallest plane I've ever been on" ... of course I couldn't say that, but it certainly was the smallest commercial plane I'd been on). Traveling to see family is a bonus, but I just love the airport and airplanes. Yeah, there are the downsides, like the cranky people (but when I'm having a good experience, they are funny), sitting in the middle seat sucks (how nice I am to my pregnant wife). Eating in airports and trying to plan for long flights without food isn't much fun either (though, I have to say the Cheese Danish from Guava Java is worth every fattening calorie). And traveling to see family in Minnesota takes me to my favorite airport ... the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Lindbergh Terminal. Besides housing my favorite airline (Northwest) and having great shopping (tons of great Minnesota-themed shops) they have fun statues like the one pictured above of Snoopy the Flying Ace!

O.K. Enough of the life update ... oh, but I do need to add the detail that many of you are probably wondering about ... the expansion of our family. Yes, a baby is on the way due in May. We even went to an appointment yesterday where we got the skinny on the potential gender ... well, I'm not going to give you that information just yet ... I need to leave something to blog about in the upcoming weeks.

So, welcome to the New Year. I'm sure I've missed something that is important. Oh, like our registration at Babies-R-Us for baby. It was fun to shop with the scanner and pick out fun items, though it was a little daunting to think about all of the stuff that we need ... and where it will all come from (so folks whether you know us or not, we're happy to get a gift from you). I'll keep you posted on that stuff as the time gets closer (because for right now, the space is a bit prohibitive to store a bunch of extra stuff!