Christmas on the Beach - New Years on the Mountain

Life is good, yes it is. As the title suggests, Jessica and I spent Christmas this year with my family down in Florida and then spent New Year with Jessica's family. I guess technically their both considered our families but to better illustrate the point lets keep is as hers and mine.

That is not how our holiday season began though. No, infact, it wouldn't be Christmas if it weren't for our annual trip to see the Boston Pops with Ashley and Rob. The Pops put on another great show and played their 12 Days of Christmas compilation again as well (I'll post it when I get a chance, it's a huge file so I may never get around to it). And in typical fashion is snowed the night of the Pops, it seems to be part of the tradition at this point.

While the Pops were fun, the several Lemon Martini's I enjoyed after the show were not necessary, especially since Jessica and I had to wake up at 5 in the morning to catch our flight to Florida.

What was so nice about Florida this year was the length of time we actually spent there. On average we probably spent about 3 days down there for the Holiday, however, this year we stayed for 5. This allowed us time to see the family, spend some QT with the parents, go on the boat and sit on the beach. Steve and Zoe did Christmas at their house again this year and as mentioned several times that night, the food was wonderful and the kids are adorable. It was particularly fun as they are growing up and really enjoying the idea of presents, it almost brings you back to the days of waking up on Christmas morning yourself and playing with all the toys you got from Santa.

When we left Florida we were headed up to upstate NY to visit Jessica's family for Christmas but when we found out that her father had the flu, we turned the car around and went to breakfast instead. We decided to then post-pone Christmas in NY for a few days and decided to celebrate New Years instead.

By that time, Jessica and I had also finally found a Nintendo Wii (after searching some 15-20 stores) and the New Year was brought in whilst playing a 'Wii' little Bowling (pun definitely intended). After the New Year, we all decided to Ski at one of our favorite mountains (Gore) and on Saturday we skied. The conditions were decent, considering the wintry mix storm the northeast had the week before, but rather than downhill 2 days in a row, it was suggested we cross country.

I don't know if we'll be able to rope everyone into a cross country ski trip again the next time we ski, however, it is an experience. We were also fortunate enough to take the dog with us via a converted boot bag / doggy backpack (see the pictures on the picture page).

That brings us to this week where we both returned to work full time and reality set back in (it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there).

Hope everyone enjoyed their Holiday's and has a happy and healthy new year.

PS - my resolution was to update the page and add a family tree....we'll see if I get around to it this year.