So much for posting something every week. I'll keep trying.
Picking up where I left off - Christmas day. One of the good things about being a public accountant is that I don't have to work on or usually near major holidays; specifically, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. On the flip side, I cannot take any breaks/holidays from mid January through the end of April, but it is a very good trade - I'd much rather work presidents' day than Christmas day. So, consistent with prior years, I took the entire week after Christmas off and a day or two the week after that. We took that opportunity to do a few home upgrades (paint Isaac's room), do some organizing, goal setting and some relaxing. The week is far enough in the past that I have forgotten many of the details. What I do remember is that it was very nice to be home for several weeks in a row with no travel.
Sadly, that has come to an end. I write this from a hotel room in Evanston, Wyoming. The travel season has begun. For the third year in a row I celebrated my birthday in this small town. This year I enjoyed a sub par Chinese dinner, watched some CNN, played some Words With Friends and fell asleep in my hotel room with the TV on. Knowing well in advance that this is where I would be this week, we celebrated my birthday with a dinner at my parents' home on Sunday night with my brother Allen's family and Clint Burgess' family. It was nice, the kids always have a great time with their cousins. Sam was very excited to give me the gift that he helped mom pick out. He couldn't wait for me to open it and was quite unable to keep it a secret. He told me that he wouldn't tell me what my present was, but minutes later he revealed that it was a movie, but he then stipulated that he wouldn't tell me which one, but that he knew that I would be so happy with it. Just that week I had begun to plagiarize portions of the Indiana Jones movies during story time. So, I put two and two together. We opened it on Saturday night and had a movie night with the two older boys. They asked questions throughout the entire movie: "What's Indiana doing dad?", "Why is that bad guy trying to get him dad?", "Why are the eating monkey brains dad?" and so on and so on. Funny kids. They are a blast.
And so starts 2012.
