Happy New Year

Has it really been more than 3 weeks since my last post?! The holidays certainly came and went by rather quickly...Happy (belated) New Year to everyone! I wish all of you the very best in 2009!!

As you may know, Best Buy, along with many other companies, is going through dramatic changes in an effort to restructure and improve operations. The voluntary severance period ended this past Monday. I did not take the package and will be sticking around to take my chances should involuntary layoffs become necessary (a likely scenario). Mark and my dad will be facing a round of layoffs at Seagate as well in the upcoming week. Please keep all of us in your thoughts and prayers. We all certainly want to keep our jobs, but are prepared to deal with it if we don't. At this point, it's out of our control right? For those of you going through similar circumstances, I am sending you hugs and positive thoughts.

There isn't much to report, but we did have a good holiday. I've added a couple of photos from our family Christmas. Well, they're pics of Keira cuz let's face it, she was the center of attention throughout the holidays. Enjoy!

Less Than 2 Weeks to Xmas

Wow! Where has the time gone?! Has every post started out that way? I don't know where the time goes anymore. Sometimes I wonder if all this "digital" stuff has really caused us to lose more time rather than save us time...I'm taking pictures all the time, but don't have the time to do much with them these days. I think about writing on this blog and then get distracted by other things such as playing with my iPod Touch (which I love) or chasing Keira around the house. I had great intentions of starting a photo book and updating it each month so that when year-end came I could add a few more photos and print the book. Well, I haven't even started that. Okay, enough rambling...

Last weekend I saw Wicked with my friend, Heather. She must be the luckiest person ever. She's always getting her name drawn for things, including the Wicked lottery. So, on a blustery Fri night we ventured to the Orpheum theater, entered our names and Heather won us $25 tickets to sit in the SECOND row to enjoy one of the best musicals EVER. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and will certainly be getting the Wicked soundtrack (once I figure out if I'm still old school and need to buy the CD or if I can venture and just purchase and download the album from iTunes or Amazon or something).

The same weekend some friends came over and we baked cookies for a charity called Open Arms. Some of the cookies turned out better than others, but in the end, we had a great time and donated 6 dozen cookies with leftovers to spare for ourselves. Keira even helped me scoop Raspberry jam into the thumbprint cookies we made. That's the first time we baked together! We'll definitely be doing that more in the future. She was a perfect little helper.

This past week (several weeks, truth be told) has been horrid at work. Sometimes I understand why people go postal in their jobs...but, don't worry, I'm not there...yet. I won't talk about work though because it just angers me these days. So, let's fast forward to this weekend - a whirlwind, but lots of fun too. Saturday we went to Alexa's birthday party and Keira had a great time going down the giant slide with Mark and also jumped in the bouncing thing for awhile. I was surprised she was as adventurous as she was. After that we hung out with my family at my Dad's house. That's always a fun and loud time! Then I joined Kelly and Heather for some delicious food at Red Robin - think chocolate shake, giant burger and fries! We then headed to Brunswick Bowl in Lakeville and had a great time shooting hoops, playing trivia, throwing footballs, playing air hockey, shooting people, etc...yes, it was a fantastic time. That brings us to Sunday - brunch with our friends Pam, Ed and their son, Jalen. That was a good time and Jay and Keira warmed up to each other quite well. :-)

Now it's freezing cold outside and looks like a crazy blizzard outside which doesn't bode well for the morning commute. Yuck.

Sorry for the horrible post, but just a quick update to really let you know we are all doing well despite the chaos of the holidays and life in general. I'm hoping to get myself back on track in the New Year, but am smart enough not to make it a New Year's resolution or I'll just be disappointed when I break it - ha! Hope you are all well and enjoying the holidays wherever you are...More later!

Thanksgiving Eve

Here I am writing from TX where we'll spend Thanksgiving with Mark's family tomorrow. It's a little weird b/c this is the first time in my entire life that I haven't celebrated in MN! My family and I will also get together on Sunday back in MN, but nonetheless, it's different. For one thing, it's nearly 70 degrees - how weird is that?!

We took Keira on her first plane ride ever...I was really stressed. I didn't know how she'd do with the ascent, descent and then I was worried she'd get hungry and then what if she started screaming, etc. But, she was such a good girl!! I couldn't have asked for better. She traveled like a seasoned pro. Here are a few fun photos of the trip.

Keira is Miss Independent these days so we took our sweet time in the airports and let Keira explore and walk on her own. As you can see in the carousel photo she enjoyed playing with Mark's mobile phone while we waited for luggage.

The photos below are of Keira and I strolling through the MSP airport. She helped me roll my carry on to the gate. The bottom right one is of Keira in her own seat - that was short-lived when the passenger showed up later during boarding. Bummer. She did well and slept in my arms. The top right photo is Keira and her cousin, Miranda. Manda doesn't like to keep her clothes on. They got along pretty well. :-)