Back from the holidays!
Whew! Well actually we got back in Sunday evening, but I spent so much time catching up yesterday I didn’t have time to write anything!
What a great holiday. It’s all you can ask for, travelling 2,200 miles without incident, but when you have such a good time with family that you just don’t care about the driving — that’s what the holidays are all about!
Wow, now where do I start…. Well, for starters, I’ve put up a large gallery of images at PhotoGrove covering the whole thing! I’ve certaintly been putting the new digicam to work, and it’s really proving itself. I am SO glad we got the 256MB card for it. That’s what we got Katie for christmas, too — so she could take her brand new digicam to China with her and not worry about running out of space! I think she’s planning on getting another one too, for her birthday. She can fit 220 pics at full-res, full-quality on one of them, so I’d say she’s set. She can probably double that at a lower res and quality. Definately set. 
It was just a wonderful wonderful christmas. Especially nice was seeing my family in Chattanooga, which simply does not happen frequently enough. I’ve seen my younger cousins so infrequently in the last 8 years or so, it’s hard to keep up with them! The eldest of them are getting ready for college already. They have all grown up into very neat people.
We did the rounds with Jen’s family also, of course, and had a wonderful time with them. We did a white-elephant exchange with her uncle Bob and family, and that was a lot of fun — hilarity ensued, lets put it that way. Our theme gift this year was the AIRZOOKAS!!! Everybody loved them. (well, maybe not the victims so much…)
Jen’s parents met us in Chattanooga with Erin so we could leave from there, which was incredibly fortunate for my family. My family’s van was having some semi-serious transmission problems (the overdrive kept turning off!) so it was very lucky that the Sharps were there, and could caravan back to Virginia with my family. They got there just fine, only a little slower since they essentially did the whole thing in 3rd gear. Glad I wasn’t there for that trip.
Our big gift was a camcorder! There’s no way we could have gone without a camcorder with a new baby around. No way. But we’re set with a really sweet camcorder! Now we’re good to go! I also got just the coolest leather coat ever! And I got Jen a really nice electric blanket that is so cozy, even I use it! (it’s dual control, so I can use it lightly and don’t have to be subjected to the oven on Jen’s side of the bed) Jen also got a lot of very attractive maternity clothes. And…and…well I can’t even begin to name all the cool stuff we have now.
We also gave some really hit gifts! The memory for Katie’s camera, of course. We also scanned and put together a CD of the Sharp’s family albums so they have a more permanent copy. And a really lovely family tree picture frame sculpture for Jen’s grandmother. And a really cool walking stick for Jen’s father. And…and…well there’s just so much!! Take a look at the pictures, I can’t describe everything!!
Merry Christmas!!!