Christmas Letter Season.

My writing for personal reasons has taken a backseat to work, being a husband, dad, carpenter and hockey coach. My last entry was more than a week ago. May be the newness of the blog thing has worn off.

I couldn't believe it when on November 29th we got our first Christmas Letter/Photo in the mail. It was insane. I wasn't even done with leftover turkey, and Little Miss On Top Of Things (Name Removed To Protect The Properly Planned) had already dressed the gromets up the same, gave the dog a bath and talked her husband into wearing a sweater for a picture.

I think it is funny, and I am guilty of it as well, but our lives all sound so "Leave It To Beaverish" in Christmas letters.

For example:
Joe got a promotion in his company, he is now a Facility Engineer (aka-janitor).

I (the wife speaking here) enjoy my time at home with the kids keeping the house clean, and running them to football, soccer, gymnastics, swimming and piano (aka - I watch a lot of Oprah and Dr. Phil, and then ship the kids off to activities so I don't have to put up with them for a few hours).

Johnny is an 8th grader and loves math, science and is a great athlete (aka - we held Johnny back in 5th grade, because he wasn't starting on the YMCA league basketball team).

Mary is an active sophomore and dad is doing a good job to keep the boys away (aka - Mary is on her cell phone with girl friends all the time, but the boys just aren't calling her).

You get the picture...so I thought, I need to write both versions of the Christmas Letter...I'll send the one that paints the beautiful and then Blog the one that tells the reality of some things.

I'm doing them both in the same format.

January - I worked some crazy long hours at work, and watched a lot of TV. Steph turned 30 on the 30th and I completely missed her birthday. She is still mad about that one. Maxim got into some trouble at day care for hitting and not listening.

February - Steph ran a red light and totaled her brand new Yukon, broke her ankle, banged up her knee, but thank God that her, Maxim and unborn baby were protected. My highlight was that my bonus gets deposited in February...believe me it came in handy for the hospital bills...by the way we met our deductible this year.

March - I looked at some Christmas pictures we had developed and I realized that I was a fat tub of crap, and instantly launched myself into a workout routine...I weighed 228 and had the body of a 38 year old...happy to report that now I am 202 and benching over 260 pounds. Steph was starting to be ready for the baby to be born in March...she did a lot of nesting during this month. She made me start finishing our basement. Maxim went through a spell in March where he would not sleep in his own bed, because it was "nary, nary scary". So instead of fighting it, we let him sleep with us. We are still on occasion trying to break that habit.

April - April was great...Brecken was born, Steph was at home with the boys...the month kind of flew by.

May - My little cousin got married in May...so we all (our family and my mom and dad) packed up and drove to Chi-town together. My dad at times was completely annoying. I think he wanted to punch me about 4 times during the trek. We always end up loving each other.

June - Maxim turned 4 on June 17th. Steph went back to work, and we started to contimplate a move...and on a whim we decided to move to a lake...Lake Byron north of Huron.

July - I do not remember a single thing about July...except it happened, and the 4th of July was during this time...I think we went to Pickstown and wakeboarded a ton.

August - Dad and I went to the Knoxville Nationals...great red neck fun...We put the house on the market and sold it for full asking price in 30 days. Moved our stuff to my parents house and storage in Huron and started on the extremely big project of fixing up the house at the lake we bought.

September - Wake me up when September ends. I think this is when Steph had her gall stone surgery...or was that in August. I can't recall.

October - More house work...Maxim swore 2 times this month...where he heard that from, we have no idea. It is pretty scary hearing a 4 year old use the f-word and s-word properly. (See now that's something every parent would leave out of their fantasy world Christmas letter, but it happened and it was a big deal so I included it on the blogmas letter)

November - Maxim started hockey...to my pride, but he started hockey with tears for the first 5 practices and didn't want to go, and wouldn't skate without someone helping him...he is one of the best 4 year olds on the ice now! Brecken started feeding himself, and standing up...he will be walking in early 2007.

December - Steph is having her knee scoped, and holiday cheer...stuff like that. But for real, things have been great this year, I just need to hurry up and get the kitchen done in the lake house before Steph yells at me again. I guess when you take away a woman's kitchen it's like a man losing his garage.


Happy Holidaze
The Fam



There both versions...if you were not among the people on the list of mailed letters, I apoligize for that, but you were invited to the blogmas letter.

By the way my sister rules. (There Sal, now you have been mentioned like 4 or 5 times on the blog)