The Day After Christmas

It has been a good Christmas. This is the first Christmas since I moved away from my parents' house back in 1991 that I have spent both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the place I was currently living. Before I got married, I always went to my parent's home. After I married in 1998, we started alternating between my folks and Becki's. We always managed to have time with both families during the season, but at least one of those days was spent away from home.

We decided this year, with moving into the new home, that we would start a new tradition of having Christmas here every other year. The alternate year we will still be going to my parents' home. It helps that my wife's mother now lives with us so I guess it means we will still be at my mother-in-law's house when not in Norge. :)

My sister, Pam, drove the folks up on Christmas Day and they arrived around 2 PM. That worked out well because we were able to have breakfast and exchanged gifts down in my mother-in-law's apartment. Shortly after, we moved upstairs and exchanged gifts amongst ourselves. When my family arrived, we spent about an hour chatting and then began the gift exchange process all over again with them. Needless to say, my children made out like bandits! And it's not over, we have more family coming to visit on New Year's Day. whew!

It has been a nice visit. This morning, most of us slept in and I cooked up some scrambled eggs for breakfast. Becki cooked bacon, Dad toasted bread and Becki's mom brought up some scones. It was a pretty good meal, if I do say so myself. Pam, Becki, and I went to the YMCA to hopefully work off some of that food. I'm sure that did some good, but of course I came home and snacked off and on all day. :( I guess I will have to make a couple of more trips to the Y in the near future.

Mom, Dad, and Pam are leaving tomorrow, Saturday, around noon to go back home. We are glad to have a home where we can host family. We hope that this will be the start of a trend. Becki and I want our home to be open to family and friends not just for holidays but anytime. This house was a true blessing to us and we want to have it open for anyone who wants to visit.

Writing on the Wall

I am not going to start this off by being long-winded. No sense setting up an expectation of blogs to come.

The plan is just to have a place to put down some thoughts as they come to me (another reason to not expect much here). I wanted a chance to express myself from time to time. I have tried this type of thing before, but just never felt as comfortable as I would have liked and could not seem to get a decent blog going. Hopefully starting fresh will help.

Future installments will include, but not be limited to; updates on the family, venting about things that upset me (let's keep those to a minimum, shall we), and what God is doing in my life.

I don't expect a large following. In fact, if I am the only one who ever reads this, that will be okay. I just felt like having a place to put things into writing.

So that's it...let's begin.