Family and friends

I hope everyone had the holiday season that they hoped for. Personally, I enjoyed visiting with friends and family and spending time locked up in my house hiding out away from the world. I guess you could say I got a taste of it all. We spent Christmas eve and Christmas day with Dave's side of the family. How blessed we are to have so many loved ones nearby. We then had 2 Chanukkah parties with my family--one at my parents' house and one at mine. We invited some non-Jewish friends over to the party at our house so they could get a feel for how we celebrate the holiday. For the rest of Chanukkah, we had a quite celebration at home lighting candles and giving Jayden presents. Yes, I spoiled him and gave him a present every night. I probably won't do that again when Chanukkah lands right near Christmas because he got very present happy! He opened 3 presents that were not his during non-present opening times because he was over-zealous! Well, perhaps when he is older he can show more restraint...heaven knows I never could! :)

I got Dave a magnetic dartboard that Jayden loves, and Dave got me an iPod that Jayden loves. I would love to say that we love our gifts as much as Jayden does, but is there anything a 2 year old boy doesn't like? If so, I haven't found it except perhaps sleeping...and even that he likes when he is pretending!

Someday I may post pictures of Jayden and the candles and the presents and the other holiday things we did, but for now, we lost the charger for my camera battery and the pictures are stuck there for the time being.

Anyway, I mentioned that I got to visit with friends too. I did indeed! First, my sister-in-law came out to visit us. That was really nice. I'm glad she came out. Then, the day I took Michelle back to the airport, I picked up Bridget who came to town for terribly sad reasons, but we got to visit a bit after the funeral and that was nice, too.

Out of the blue, I emailed an old friend just to say hi. She emailed me back and for the first time in 2 years, we got together for a cup of coffee. We probably had lots to talk about and could have spent a great deal more time chatting away, but due to babysitting constraints on my part, we had a very short visit. But it was nice.

Then, my long-time friend Elizabeth got into town and we spent a couple of days hanging out and talking and visiting. I do love visiting with old friends.

Golly, I didn't know I had that much to say! I hope you all had as much enjoyment in wrapping up last year and bringing in this one as I did and may the year be all that you make it and more!