Christmas Cheer for all to hear

It's been a busy time around here, so this is my attempt to catch up and record some fun things we've been up to.

First off Gabriella and I set off to Kentucky to see my family and watch Erin walk in graduation from WKU...

When we landed in Louisville, Ella Bella fell asleep and when I picked her up her head hit the overhead bin. It wasn't just a small bonk on the head, I had put her over my shoulder and smacked her face against the bottom metal of the bin. She cried and cried and then cried some more and then I cried. I had accidentally hurt my baby, and it was our second flight that day. Let me just say that if I can ever ever get a direct flight I will, it was a long day for both of us.
Mom, dad and Lauren made it to the airport to find me sitting on the floor, surrounding by my luggage, holding a crying baby. By then she had been crying for about 20 minutes and I sort of lost it. I knew she was tired but I couldn't help feeling so guilty. Once we were in the car she was more interested in Lauren's phone and I felt better knowing my child was not permanently damaged. We were treated to a great dinner out and guess who was also at the steak house eating? SANTA!


We got our picture, a free toy even and then realized we crashed a private company party. Oh well! It was Santa...who cares right?

That night everyone had a dance session in the kitchen...
The next day we went to see Grandma Janet and Grandma Wilma. It was a bitter-sweet visit but I'm glad I was able to do it.
The next day we were off to Frankfort to see Aunt Geri at work.

Ella Bella really loved her stress ball...Geri ended up giving it to her. Geri also sensed some hard core basketball skills judging by the way Ella threw that ball at her head.
We found a little place to eat connected to a bed and breakfast:

Somehow dad caught this picture...we call it drunk Gabriella, but of course she isn't drunk but I can't help but laugh at this...

Later that day we went to Schimpffs Candy store, it's been in Jeffersonville, IN since 1871...
Okay, the next day was Erin's graduation...Good Job Nernin!



Highlights of the trip:
seeing family
dancing in the kitchen
watching Ella Bella play with my sisters
watching Ella Bella playing with the Christmas ornaments
selling more stockings off the etsy site while I was in KY than I have all year...thanks to Steve for sending some out for me
Gabriella stealing mom's pop

This pretty much documents about half of my trip...more pics and cute videos to come!

Happennings, and a great phone call out of the blue...

It's been a while since I last wrote, and since I'm not Meredith, calm down...no awesome pictures this time. I will, however, throw in this picture of a trout.

OK...having accomplished that, things have been crazy busy around here lately. I recently took a new job at work that requires me to travel. Fortunately the travel isn't every week, but when I do have to travel, it's generally over several days, which is a bit of a bummer. I'm also finishing up my semester of classes. I know you're not supposed to say this, but I am SO SICK of school. It may be great and all when you do it for a living, but it's hard when you've got church and work and a great family and a lot of video games.

So anyway, we've just been getting ready for the holidays. As a note, I think it's important that I talk about a couple of ornaments on our tree. Every year, we get a couple of Hallmark Keepsake ornaments for our tree. We like them because they're generally very topical (i.e., they feature relevant subjects from the year), and they provide us a neat way to remember each year. This year we struggled with what to get. We narrowed it down to Little Einsteins, which Ella has recently become a big fan of, or WALL-E, as the first movie Ella ever saw in a theater (she technically saw it 1.75 times, since Ella and I attempted it once alone, and as you can see, didn't make it all the way through). We decided on WALL-E, but they were all sold out, so we ended up getting Little Einsteins (that ornament, by the way, was the best worst idea ever...they sing the theme song, so I now have it memorized). Meredith was driving down the street one snowy day and saw a Hallmark, and she found WALL-E! Needless to say, we were all thrilled.

OK...so other than that, this Christmas holiday I had been having a good time and all, but I hadn't really gotten into the "Christmas spirit." We aren't going to be able to travel to see family this year, so this marks the first time since I was in Brazil that I'm not with some extended family on that day. Now I would like to think that I have a pretty good sense about the Christ part of things, so I don't consider myself to be off on that side, but I just wasn't getting into the holiday mood, despite the songs, etc. Well, this morning, I was working through schoolwork preparing for my Final on Monday (I've watched about 5 hours of classes since Wednesday...one more hour to go, plus reading), and since Meredith is visiting family with Gabriella, was feeling kind of low. Then I got a phone call.

It was Santa.

He told me that he could tell that I needed some cheer, and that he needed some help working out what to get Gabriella and Meredith. He invited me to come shop with him a bit, and pick some stuff out. I accepted.

We decided to take my car, since he said that the sleigh is not discreet enough for this time of year (everybody's looking for him these days), and my car met spec, since it was red and had plenty of ReinDeerPower (RDP).

We spent a couple of hours looking around and having a good time. Incidentally, Santa had forgotten his credit card back at the North Pole (other pants or something), so we had to use mine. We got back, he thanked me for the help, and left. I looked in my bags, and found a copy of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", just like the one my dad read to me when I was a kid.

While we were shopping, holiday cheer hit me like a ton of bricks. Santa had told me that since I had travelled so much for Christmas in the past, that he hadn't really needed my help, but that this year, since I have such a good wife and daughter (they were at the top of the nice list, he told me--I didn't ask where I was), he needed my help to pick out just the right things.

When I was a kid, I could hardly wait for Christmas morning to come, to see what Santa had brought me. Us kids would bargain with my parents for a reasonable time to get up. Now, just so you know, this is not reasonable reasonable. This is Christmas reasonable, which means it was the latest we kids thought we could go without exploding from excitement (usually around 4:30 am). Realizing that my Dad has been getting these calls from Santa for quite a few years now, I figured out that my Dad was never campaigning for later. Just like me, he will campaign for 4:30 am this year.

Just so he doesn't explode with excitement.

After all, you only get to help Santa once a year.

Party Downtown!

Tonight Steve and I were able to get out of the house and go downtown for one of my work parties. We ate at a restaurant called the "Palm". It was amazing.
Some of the best food I've had in a long time, sitting in a private room and watching the Parade of lights go by.



Here is Dr. Bryan and his wife...and the "other Dr. Bryan and Dr. Stacey"


The food was great, the people were great, but the greatest thing of all was being there with my honey.
Thanks for being my "Date" Steve.
There were 13 of us and we did a gift exchange. We won a Whole Foods gift card and a Starbucks gift card...looks like we will be drinking a lot of Hot Chocolate.