Home again

It's well into the first week of my two week vacation from school, and we are home from visiting mom and grandmother in Weatherford. This holiday season was special for me because it's the first holiday season in 3 years that we have gotten to spend with my side of the family. I'll never take it for granted again! The first few days of my break, Erin, Josh and the kids and dad and Ginny all came to Lubbock and we had our first Christmas celebration in our new home. Well, it was really on Christmas Eve, but close enough. Then on Christmas day we packed up and drove to mom's for some family time in Weatherford. It was a lot of fun. After Erin and her family left, we rented a U-Haul and drove out to granddad's old barn out on their land to go through and pack up what was left there when they moved from the farm almost 10 years ago. We found some cool stuff but mostly it just needed to be gone through and gotten rid of. You know it's scary when you find a box that your granddad has labeled "bric-a-brac," and then there were all the boxes of old bank statements and tax returns circa 1970. No, I am not kidding. Anyway, we had fun doing a little manual labor that day and I'm sure mom will have a blast going through every single box that we brought to her garage.

So now we're back home and I'm savoring every minute of the time I have off. I could be doing a lot of work, but I promised myself that I wouldn't do anything work-related and that I would just enjoy my time off and relax. This is hard for me because sometimes "relaxing" means giving myself time to worry about all the stuff I have to do. Anyway, I'm not going to do it. Let tomorrow worry about itself.

Next week we will be off to Ruidoso for a couple of days to celebrate our fourth anniversary. I'm really looking forward to that. Chad has come down with a nasty cold that is making him feel pretty miserable, so please pray that it will go away before our little mini-vacation.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year. Here are some pictures from the past few days.

Kellen and Bonnie are scoping out the ornaments, lights and--oh yeah--presents.I think we've got ourselves a little Mozart on our hands. She'll be composing by age 3. Kellen and Pee Paw enjoying some quality time watching the "Jungle Book."Uncle Chad's electric drumset was a BIG hit. Look how fast Bonnie's hitting the drums!Kellen really enjoyed playing and was really amused every time a sound would come out of the amp...(oh yeah, Chad got an amp for his electric drumset for Christmas)Then it was out to play in the leaves. Secretly, we were just trying to pawn off the raking on our niece and nephew. It worked!This is about the time Chad suggested to Kellen and Bonnie that they should start throwing the leaves on me.

And Kellen got leaves in his mouth. Serves him right for being so mean to his aunt who was only trying to get some good photo ops.