I haven’t posted anything in a great while and that’s a good thing.  I just haven’t felt like writing anything.  Now that it’s January 1, 2008, I felt I should write the first post of the new year.

So, what’s been happening in my life?  Well, I’ve been enjoying the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  I had to work last week, which was dull.  But I’m thankful to have had some time off anyway.  We hosted Christmas Eve (which is when my family gives presents and does the usual Christmas-y things).  It required a tremendous amount of work to make our house somewhat presentable given that it usually looks like a bomb has exploded.  But we managed to pull it all together and we had a good time.  Michele made a lovely meal, there was plenty of yummy things to munch on, and even some Bailey’s Irish Cream was on hand to enjoy.  Christmas day was quiet and relaxed.  We had a nice meal then, too, and sat around watching movies at my brother-in-law’s house.

This past few days were spent with my side of the family in east central Illinois.  We hadn’t been there in several months — quite a long time.  It was great to see everyone, including little Russel, my niece’s baby boy.  My nephew Ben was with his cousins in Canada so we didn’t see him, and my brother, Dan, wasn’t feeling well so we missed seeing him, too.  But everyone else was there.  One of the fun things we did was to go on our first geocaching adventure using the GPS unit my brother-in-law gave me for Christmas.  I looked up three geocaches in the area and we were able to find two out of the three.  The children enjoyed it and in the process we were able to spend some healthy time tramping around in the outdoors finding lots of interesting things like a cecropia moth’s cocoon, and seeing a flock of pheasants (something the little kids had never seen before).

Of course we enjoyed giving and receiving lots of presents.  The little kids each got some special things such as kiddie digital cameras, MP3 players, cute big fluffy animal slippers, and much more.  Michele got an iPod nano — cool!

We are thankful for many blessings, including the opportunity to spend time with both sides of our families.