Well, as the Christmas vacation time comes to a close, and the inevitable return to work/school creeps ever closer, I thought I'd post a quick recap in an attempt to hold on a little longer. It was a blessed time for our family, and we were able to do a lot and spend a lot of time together, so for that I'm very grateful.
We kicked off the season with 3 performances in a row. Iain and Allison had their school Christmas performances on back-to-back nights, and then Allison and Amber had their winter dance recital on the following day. If you're wondering, yes, that's too many performances in a row.
Like many companies, HP had a mandatory shutdown for the two weeks around the holidays, so before Christmas, we took the kids out for their first ice skating experience. While they spent a good amount of time on their bottoms, Iain, Allison, and Amber all were able to skate around unassisted by the end.
I also had a first, by attempting my hand at homemade pizza. Sadly, it took a burned arm and 2 bad attempts before we got something that was pretty good. Definitely not my last attempt.
The holiday was a wonderful time, as we were able to spend it with both Faith's and my parents, so the kids had an unending supply of grandparents to perform for. As usual, the women made enough food to feed an army, and the men were happy to oblige by eating enough for an army as well.
After things settled down a little bit, I was able to take Iain out with Faith's dad to do a little target shooting down at Clear Creek. It was a long drive for not a lot of shooting, but it was worth it to get out of the house, and Iain was able to fire Faith's dad's .45 automatic for the first time, which he thought was pretty cool.
We just finished 'un-making' Christmas around the house and packing all the decorations away, but it was blessed and joyous time we're not soon to forget. I hope all our friends and family had a wonderful Christmas and that we'll see a prosperous new year in 2009. (ok, ok 2008 didn't set too high of a bar, I know)
I did my best to capture some snippets of this in our
Christmas 2008 web album.