Winter Joys

Ahhhh, where is the time flying so fast? The last couple of weeks have gone way too fast for me. I feel like I haven't had a chance to sit down and take in the Christmas spirit, which makes me oh-so-sad and missing home. But, no time to dwell on that. Here is the quickest up-date what we've been up to. When I get to it, I'll post some pictures.

• Thanksgiving we had family at our house week we had family at our house
• The weekend after, we drove out to St. Louis for my bro-in-law's graduation, and helped them pack up their house (Henry helped more, but I carried out quite a few boxes, too:)
• Then Henry had finals all week
• On Dec. 11 I turned 32 - unfortunately, I hadn't reached my goal of being down to 175 lbs by then. At this point, I've just given up on the whole thing completely and try to just maintain. Unfortunately, since we've been so busy with...stuff, we didn't celebrate much, but we did go out for dinner to a very nice Mediterrainean restaurant.
• Dec. 12 we had our ward christmas party for our little 400+ member ward. Henry was in charge, and so we both ended up doing a lot to get all that set up. It turned out fine, even though I'm not a fan of the 'Christmas dinner gorge and leave' kind of party. I find it rather unfulfilling, but oh well.
• The next week, even though school was over, Henry had to see patients every day, for reasons I shall not disclose publicly, but we both felt very stressed. It wasn't much of a break.
• On Saturday morning we left for Texas (by car). We packed everything on Friday, and hopped into the car Saturday morning. Unfortunately, when we walked out at 6.30am Sat. morning, there was snow everywhere. Not a great start to a long roadtrip.
• Roadtrip continued bad when at mile 37 Henry tried to pass a truck, and kept losing his traction and sliding. At mile 45 Henry tried to move into the very left lane, lost traction again, kept sliding sideways until we were almost off the road. The sound strip saved us. At mile 48, while passing a truck, we almost got run off the road by that very truck...I guess he was sliding, or maybe he didn't see us. After all that we decided it was time for some extra prayers. We called Henry's parents, and told them to pray for us. The weather got a little better soon after, and once we were out of Ohio, the roads/weather were fine.
• We stopped in Kentucky and saw Abe Lincoln's birth place. There wasn't much to see, but the little visitor center had the finest public restrooms I've ever seen.
• We stayed the night in Nashville, Tennesse. Our hotel had an indoor pool we took advantage off, and all the comforts you'd expect from a Marriott (minus the Marriott price thanks to priceline.com). It was great. Oh, we also checked out the Opry Hotel gardens. Craziness.
• Sunday we took off to Birmingham, Alabama. We visited the Civil Rights Center in Birmingham, which was very well done, and worth seeing. It really made us think about a lot of things. Then we drove on to our hotel in Hattiesburg, Mississipi. Oh, I should mention that driving in Alabama was sure bliss. I was pretty convinced that no matter where in the US you drive, it's horrible. But Alabama was a great surprise. Not only where the roads in great condition, and the speed limit 70mph, but people actually moved back to the right lane after passing, moved out of your way when you were going faster, and...best of all, everyone was going 80mph on average anyway. Lovely. Alabama rocks. It also looked really pretty.
• Not much to report on Mississipi.
• Yesterday, we stopped in New Orleans. It was worth stopping, but I wouldn't want to live there. We had some gumbo and jambalaya, but passed on the muffaletta. Then we drove on to Houston, and got there late Monday night.
• I should mention that, once again, Sophia has been the perfect road trip baby. Whenever we would leave in the mornings she'd doze off for a 2-3 hour nap, and then for the rest of the drive she'd quietly and happily play in her car seat. Lucky. And all that while being sick, and having some nasty diapers we didn't even notice for hours.
• Today we took it easy, until I figured I need some things from the grocery store. Yikes. I will not leave the house again until Christmas is over. Everywhere was a mad house. Literally.

Now, I shall go and spend some time with family. I hope I'll get my Christmas letter posted before Christmas. If not, let me say one thing (or two): well...I don't have any good words right now. I just love Christmas so much. When I sing a lot of the religious Christmas songs, I feel like I'm singing what I feel in my heart all the time. Christ truly is the light of the world, and I love to think how much hope there is in my life because of him. I feel so blessed.