I love Christmas. I do. It's my very favorite holiday and I love that it brings people together... that you express your love and affection... that you spend time with your family, biological or not.
I was far from my family this year and I missed them. I really really missed them. But, I am so lucky to have such wonderful people in my life here, who although they might not normally celebrate such a Christmas carol filled, ornament adorned, festive holiday, put on quite a show for me. I am so appreciative!
On Christmas Eve, we celebrated with the Van Dykes (Stephanie and her parents). We all decorated the tree together and Papa Van Dyke made a delicious dinner of eggplant parmesan after some decadent cheese fondue. Ice cream sundaes and plenty of wine made for a festive party, filled with excellent conversation and much laughter.
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| The newly decorated tree, the Popes, and the Van Dykes! |
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| The beautiful table and the ladies who decorated it! |
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| We wish you WELLNESS in 2014! |
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| Happy married Christmas! |
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| Post-delicious meal... We are very full. |
And then on Christmas morning, we did not wake up bright and early, but slept in. Santa still came though and we all ventured to the living room to see what he brought us. Cast iron! Calendars! Oranges! Kitchen supplies! We had a great time opening our stockings.
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| Bogey and Randal are overwhelmed with Christmas spirit. |
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| The beautiful ornament made by Randal. This is the design that was on my first birthday card from him. I love it. |
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| Blueberry buckle, eggs, and sausage make up our Christmas "breakfast." |
We picked up Randal's father and brought him over for the afternoon. While he enjoyed resting in our living room, Randal and I went on a beautiful Christmas hike. It was clear and sunny and fun.
Christmas night, Randal and I cooked a nice dinner for the three of us and enjoyed our 1/4 cow named Sparkle. And the day after Christmas? We rested. We did puzzles. We played with our presents. We enjoyed each other.
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| Opening the package from Mom and Dad. |
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| New tights for the working woman! |
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| A wonderful place to be. |
And January brings much fun and activity! We leave tomorrow for Portland and Seattle to celebrate New Years with friends from Baltimore and Randal's 30th birthday! Stephanie and I are defending a research proposal to the hospital internal review board on January 15th so that we can officially start our GIS research (geographic information systems). We are honing in our research questions so that we can start creating intake paperwork for our clinic. We move into our temporary office and hope that all goes well with the building that we want for our clinic. We are going to conferences at the end of January to learn about worksite wellness projects and Randal is joining me for mine in Florida.
And we are hoping... wishing... sending all positive thoughts to the CMS grant that we applied for this summer. We will hear in January whether or not we got it.
What a year it has been.
What a year it will be.
And a very happy new year to you all!
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