Celebrating the Year of the Rat

Happy Chinese New Year! We celebrated the onset of the Year of the Rat with Tamara and her charming son Asher at the Chinese New Year parade in our (2 block long) DC China Town. It was a little on the windy side, but we had a blast.

After the dragons danced by and the band played their tune, we headed over to the Building Museum for some playtime in their awesome play room and got to cheer Asher on as he's started walking now. It's like getting two New Years in one year, right? So I guess I get to redo my resolutions list... For now, pictures!

January playtime with family

January has gotten 2008 off to a roaring start with several visits with family including Jerry, Mary, Brook, and Hunter as well as a business visit from Grandpa John and our trip to Minnesota for overdue holidays with both Grandma Renee and Grandpa John. It's great to see Arabella growing up with so many wonderful relatives. All of our visits have had loads of playtime, though our trip to Minnesota took most of us down with the flu. Ah well, tis the season! Enjoy the pictures, and hope you find plenty of playtime at your house too!

Finding her new mommy groove

We're excited to see friends becoming parents around us and hosted a Blessingway celebration for our friend Dawn on Sunday. We had all sorts of great vibes happening. Dawn and Ivan have great friends and family to help them make this fantastic journey with ease.



Enjoy some pictures and thanks for inviting us to be a part of it all!

Christmas Crumpette

The holiday sparkle seems to be here to stay. We enjoyed our Christmas and seeing family -- both live and via web-cam -- and now look forward to our adventures of 2008. Pictures tell of our trip to see Grandma and Grandpa Britner, as well as Great Grandma Bettie and Aunt Jackie. Christmas Eve found us with a special trip to the playground and a little family celebration at home, it felt great.



Many thanks to our friends and relatives for the thoughtful gifts and warm holiday greetings this year! It's so fun to see where the year has taken us all.

Enjoy and happy hew year!

On the 13th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! Or, may the days leading up to your celebrated day be relaxing, low-key, and relatively low cost so that the day itself is merry and bright.

The year has flown by quickly. For comparison, here is Santa picture 2006...



You might notice that we've improved by merely being awake for this year's visit.

This year we'll celebrate Christmas eve at home and join Arabella's Maryland grandparents for Christmas Day. I've no doubt that Santa will be dropping in to unload half his sack.

We're very fortunate to be who, where, and when we are in life. Looking back, it's been a fantastic year. We couldn't ask for much more in 2008 than we already have.



Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!