Joe,
I am sitting at Mom's new iMac, looking out over the lake and enjoying the quiet of a fairly slow Christmas. Whenever I am in the north woods, things seem to slow down. It is a good feeling.
We all took a walk along the beach. It is so pretty here, mild temperatures and beautiful views. Then we came back and built a fire on the beach. Caleb and I sat out by it for quite a long time. We hope that God is slowing each of you down today. We hope that you are spending time with family and friends. We hope that all of you encounter Jesus today. Merry Christmas.
Whether you are Catholic or not, sometimes you need a little help from your friends. Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers and hopefully he is praying for us (and Tricia and Alex and everyone else who is traveling) this weekend. Tonight we begin the 11 hour trek to Alpena. We are super excited to be with Mom and eventually Tricia, Alex and Davy. The boys have been counting down the days for this trip since Thanksgiving. We'll drive about three hours tonight to Wausau, Wisconsin. We have a room at a hotel with a pool. Remember all of the fun memories of your family sleeping all together in the hotel room on trips. I always got to sleep with Joe. He said that I farted in my sleep, a fact that I still dispute (and one that Amanda could varify.) We are looking forward to making some memories. We have Joni's laptop and are going to fire up some movies along the way. Can't wait. Safe travels to all
Since we won't all be together this Christmas, I have taken some artistic liberties with this picture. It is not my best Gimp (an open soure photo shop program) work. You'll have to imagine that Ben is Matty in this picture. Its not a big stretch. I hope you all like it though. We will definitely miss the FL Gammons in Alpena. I am looking very forward to seeing the PA Falders and mom. It is snowing in MN right now. I hope that the roads will be somewhat clear for our trip. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
It is Adam's debut album, produced with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Many of his other albums are more alt country, maybe even alternative. This one is a great bluesy, twangy, album. He even duets with Emmylou Harris on a beautiful "Oh, My Sweet Carolina." Another one of my favorite tracks is "To be young (Is to be sad, Is to be high)." If that isn't the lament of a 20-something, I don't know. If you're looking for a great album to pick up with your Amazon gift certificate, your new iTunes card, or the extra cash you have from Christmas (yeah, right), this should definitely be on your list.
Every night before the boys go to bed we do some sort of devotions. Lately we have been reading this book about Christmas carols. (This would be a great book to buy for kids or grandkids.) It tells the story of the Christmas carol, has a verse of scripture, and then we sing the song. Of course the boys don't know the songs yet, so it is usually a solo. We finished the book the other night though. So last night we just went through and sang some that they knew. They have learned a lot of them from listening to Christmas music on the radio.
This morning I had the boys sing one of their favorites. Caleb is kind of leading on this one, but you can hear Ben here and there. Enjoy and thanks for reading and listening.
Back to the boys, for Christmas Shube (Amanda's mom) got them each a robe. They had asked her for these, in part because every morning they see me in by bath robe and in part because all of the Star Wars jedis wear "bath robes" too. Ben was very excited about this. He kept talking about wanting to put it on first thing in the morning. When we went downstairs to check on him before we bedded down ourselves, he had taken off his pj's and was sleeping in just his robe and undies. Every day is an adventure with these three crazies. We thank God for them often.
