Winter Break

Kent and I have both been away from work since the 21st of December. It's been a busy time that began with our trip to Las Vegas for the bowl game. Immediately after getting home from Vegas on the Sunday before Christmas Eve we got ourselves and the house ready for company and to host a Christmas Eve party with family and friends.















We had 11 folks over including Kent's Mom Sylvia and his sister Kay and brother in law Tony. We also had Jennifer, Jay and Olivia, Sean and Barbara, Mike and Bill, Sherry and one of our new neighbors Corinne.

















It was a lot of fun. We started at our house for appetizers and drinks, dinner for 13 at Judy Fu's followed by desert and ornament exchange back at our place. The house looked beautiful all decorated for the holidays including a lot of fresh flowers which I love!





Christmas day was spent with Sylvia and Kay and Tony. It was a very relaxing day - the weather in Seattle was wet and cold so other than venturing out late in the evening to tour neighborhood lights we stayed at home. I made a prime rib for dinner that was delish!


The next morning we saw Kent's family off and then did a little shopping before loading up the pups for a road trip to see my parents in northern CA. Its about a 10 hour drive from our place so we drove as far as Eugene OR before stopping for the night and arriving in Anderson CA the next day just after noon.

We had a great visit with my parents. They always treat us well and are grateful for the time we spend together. There is always a lot of laughing and joking but always from a place a love and support! We went to a couple of movies - Les Miserables and The Hobbit. Dad's a great sport - he sat through both of these very long movies although they are not his kind of film. Other than that we did our typical run to Costco and some additional shopping. It was a very relaxing time that included eating, napping, and most importantly, sleeping in! Despite the numerous roosters crowing starting about 3:45 am we slept well!


Mom always manages to create the most comfortable beds! Thanks for a great visit!

Mom shared a few pictures with me this trip which I scanned. The first two are ones of me and my brothers as children - I miss my brothers and wish i saw them more often.





The other is from my learners permit when I was about 15 and a half. Everyone thinks I look so mad in the picture! I remind then that I was a gay boy growing up in Aberdeen - damn right I was pissed! Lol!


We headed home today (Sunday) and as I write this post we have been on the road for about 9 hours and are about 30 minutes from home. One of our pups Maggie is not feeling well so we had to stop several times along the way to care for her.
We returned in time to go to Olympia tomorrow to spend new years eve celebrating an early 40th birthday for my friend Jennifer! Really looking forward to it!
We are going to go down to our old house tomorrow morning to clean up the yard before heading down to Olympia. New Years day will be spent watching the Rose Bowl and taking down decorations - just in time to return to work on Wednesday!
Happy New Years to everyone! 2012 has been a big year between moving to our new house, the reelection of Obama and the passage of gay marriage in our state!
2013 is going to be a great year much of it spent planning for our wedding that will occur on our 16th anniversary as a couple - 11/16/13.
Later - Jim
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