Seasons greetings from the frozen tundra.
Jen and me with our soon to be baby girl in the works.
My parents, Mike and Julie, along with the newest addition.....Baby Ben!
My sister Melissa with her husband Tony and their baby Ben.
My sister Sarah with her husband Kevin, daughters Summer & Savannah, and 13+ yr old dog Steeler.
Our nephew Vincent at Xmas. The only good photo with Jen's family before our camera battery died.
We like to learn while traveling. Here were a couple audio books we listened to while driving.
Jen and I just got back from spending 12 days in the midwest with our families. Our usual travels during the holiday season have us driving from Charlotte, NC to Chicago, IL........spending a couple days there with her family and then driving from Chicago to just outside of Madison, WI to visit my family for 4-5 days.........then driving back to Chicago to spend another couple of days with her family before making the drive back to Charlotte. This year was no different. Luckily the driving conditions complied with our plans and most of the driving was relatively stress free.
This was the first Christmas vacation in quite a while that I didn't have to go out and train. I could just relax and enjoy the time with our families. We still got out for a few walks and I did 3-4 strength sessions though. Here are some notables from our vacation:
* Spending lots of time with our families and meeting our newest nephew Ben.
* Getting both of our parents' computers running.
* Setting my parents up with a web cam so they can feel like they are closer to us once the baby comes.
* Going to Toys-R-Us to let the kids pick out their own gifts from us.
* Cooking a few meals and helping out.
* Playing Tiger Woods golf and Rock Band on the Wii.
* Reading half of my Baby Care Book in one sitting.
* Giving a goal setting workshop to my family.
* Going out to dinner with Jen's family.
* Bowling with Jen's brother.
* Breakfast with Jen's friend Beth and her boyfriend Mike.
* Listening to audio books on the drive home.
All in all there was a lot of quality time spent with our families and a lot of good laughs. I also hope that the goal setting workshop will give some of my family members the spark that they need to start accomplishing some of their goals.