It has been a long time. Too long, and I'm sorry. But I warned you I might go through long periods of silence from time to time. =) I tried many times to sit down and journal about the many directions life took my family and I over the last few months, but once the Holiday season began there was really no hope at all. Better late than never... right?
So at long last,
I'm attempting to bring you up to date with what's happened since
my family-update last fall, and the best way to do that is share some highlights and photos. I'll attempt to not drone on and on and hope you'll enjoy reading this entry.
Walk with me back a few months to All Hallows Eve 2008. Can you smell the tang of decayed leaves? Can you feel the pre-winter chill as the dry bitter air wraps you in its sleepy and dreadful embrace? Can you ... ok, well, probably not, but that's where our journey begins.
Halloween saw us continuing a tradition we began last year, Trick-or-Treat-ing with Jerrod's classmates and their parents. We stuck to the historic neighborhood of Congress Park, not far from our own but much less urban, and the guys had a fantastic time.
Forrest (then approaching 14) decided he was far too old for such nonsense and declined to participate in the traditional
friviolity, but good-naturedly accompanied us on our candy-crawl.
Jerrod dressed as the character 'V' from the film
'V for Vendetta' (a fantasticly amazing film rife with social commentary if you're into that sort of thing), a favorite film of his. The costume orignally was worn by Nathan a few years back, and Jerrod was thrilled to be allowed to borrow it for the evening from our costume trunk.
Much candy was gathered, though not consumed as quickly as one might imagine as neither of the chickens (unlike Nathan and I) have much of a sweet tooth. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are still a few lingering pieces downstairs in our pantry. Oh, well. =) And this peaceful relaxed event really was the calm before the storm.
November, as it usually does, heralded the beginning of the pre-Christmas season and found us putting the finishing touches on a spontaneous plan to journey to my home state of California and spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my family (the table setting at right is from my Mother's flawless and delectable 18-person feast)! The majority of my time was spent working on putting this trip together complete with all the trimmings (plane tickets, a car rental, packing lists, a detailed itinerary, etc.) and coordinating face time with as many immediate family members as possible without leaving anyone feeling left out, and this was pretty much damn near impossible (custimarily so where large families are concerned, no?), but I did my very best.
We had a fantastic time! Clustered around the holiday, spent at the home of my Mother and Stepfather, were a day-trip to
San Francisco, a tour of the Northern California
wine country, a stop at a favorite local cheese artisan and coincidentally the oldest cheese manufacturer in the country (
Rouge et Noir creamery), a day-trip to
Point Reyes including a stop at
the Hog Island Oyster Co.'s farm and a fantastic meal at a favorite restaurant of my Mother's,
Kru. This was an important visit home as it was the first time Nathan and the chickens had met in person several members of my family (besides my Mother and Stepfather and Sister), and it was
the first holiday we've spent with my family since I moved to Colorado.
We were also able to have a lovely post-Thanksgiving feast with my Father and Stepmother as well as my Sister and her Husband. The trip was long and lovely, and we were all pleasantly exhausted upon returning home to Denver.
Numerous photos were taken, but here are links to
Nathan's Picasa Album, some
TwitPics (
1, 2, 3, & 4) and
my Momentile Page which include the best of the bunch (my TwitPics &
Momentiles were all taken with my iPhone) Unfamiliar with
Momentile? Hover over the thumbnail you want to view; the ones from the trip were all submitted in the latter part of November. It's quite nifty, and if you're interested in joining please message me privately and I'll be happy to send you an invite code.
We flew home into a snow storm, and most unfortuantely Nathan was only home long enough to drive us safely back from the airport before
catching a taxi right back and jumping onto
a late-night flight out to the East Coast, where as most of you will know he has been managing a few projects
for his employer, Shotspotter Inc., for the last several months.
The next few days were spent struggling to get the house flipped over from all the autumn stuff to Christmas, and roughly seven days
later (and much later than I would've liked if we hadn't been traveling) the transformation was complete.
Christmas was the the usual blur of hectic and happy, music and madness, home-baked treats and half-baked gift ideas that didn't really pan out as intended. =) Here's a snap of this year's tree; there are more
via my Facebook page if you're feeling nostalgic. ;)
Nathan and I rang in the New Year rather quietly this time as my parting-gift from 2008 was a rather nasty cold / flu sort of thing. =( Weirdly, as I write this entry I'm recovering from an equally nasty one, and this is in fact the first day I've felt well enough to do anything other than lie around! I really hate illnesses like this one, and do everything I can to avoid them but it seems it just wasn't enough these two times around.
I hope I'm done with viral stuff for awhile... We spent New Year's Day feasting on a delicious Paella (1, 2) Nathan whipped up and doing nothing in particular. After all the hustle of the last three months, it was pure heaven to unwind and enjoy each other's company.
And here we are now in February! Jerrod made the Varsity Basketball team in December, and has been winning and losing in the midst of a twice-a-week game schedule building up to a tournament the first week in March, and is enjoying the experience. Forrest celebrated his fourteenth birthday on the second of January, and is currently all about the usual
teen-angst-focused moodiness, rock music, and anti-socialism (though we do see him smile frequently and he continues to enjoy family movie nights with us). ;) His braces are doing their magic, though of course it will be a slow process.
Nathan has been travelling quite a bit less so far this year compared to last year which is just wonderful, and as the chickens are spending the weekend with their Mother (released finally from the hospital last October) we're currently whiling away the weekend doing absolutely nothing in particular other than
work on projects like this one, watch movies, drink wine and laugh ourselves silly at our clumsy two-player gaming sessions (
LittleBig Planet for the PS3). As most of our weekends are infinitely more hectic than this one,
the rare free time is pure bliss.
I hope the year is treating you right so far...
wave me a 'Hello!' here or on
Facebook and let me know how you are doing.
I promised a few of you I'd post about some of this year's Valentine's Day gifts, and decided rather than tweet about it I'd share a few photos and write a blog post; since this year's celebration was a fairly major life-event and blogging is really more journaling for me, I think this is the right forum. I'm a bit hesitant at posting all of this because I'd hate for anyone to think I was bragging - instead, I'm simply sharing things with you which I'm insanely happy about and extremely grateful for. My nose isn't up in the air, I promise. =)
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