Sunday night brought us two things: another disappointing finish to the Broncos season, and the last night of the lights at the Botanic Gardens. We haven’t been able to make it to see them yet due to travel and house stuff, so we made a point to head up there just hours before it was all over. This year, however, we ventured to the Botanic Gardens ‘satellite’ facility, located off of C-470 on the southwest side of town and right next to the foothills. Since this is mostly a farm, there was a much earthier feel to the place rather than the refined and artsy feel of the downtown gardens. It was a welcome change of pace and came with a perfectly timed amount of walking and a lot less people.

New Year’s Eve tends to be fairly quiet around this household, especially for the past two of them. As a matter of fact, we are fortunate that the East Coast is 2 hours ahead, so we can celebrate by barely keeping our eyes open until the ball drops at 10mst.

We were fortunate enough to celebrate the early part of the evening with good friends Mark, Kendra, and Sydney. We had a good meal and great conversation while we watched Ezra and Sydney play, play, play. It was a perfect ending to an amazing year.

Ezra was in a kissing mood…..and the camera was stored in a rightful spot during most of it. Sorry for the blurriness, that’s what I get for grabbing the camera at the last minute (I mean, seriously, who would have been able to see that coming? There is no need for a ready camera with two cute kids running around, right?).

This pst week, we had a tearful good-bye to our cat of 10 years, Shadow, as we put her up for adoption. Ahna has long known that she is allergic to cats, but has been somewhat able to deal with it as we all lived together for the past 5.5 years. We do suspect that Ezra also shares the allergy based on his constant stuffiness while living at the townhome (and every once in a while, he would rub his head on the cat and end up with an area of irritated skin).

So we made the tough decision to take her to a shelter once we moved into the new house to allow for things to start fresh and anew. After a week of living here (not including the travel for Christmas), the verdict is still up in the air as it pertains to Ezra…but we have had a friend who is also allergic to cats over for dinner, and she didn’t have to dope up on Sudafed just to hang out for a few hours. So the lack of dander and hair is a realized benefit.

Shadow has been a great cat and a wonderful part of our family for a really long time. I originally adotped her 10 years ago and she was really hesitant to even sit in your lap. Since then, she has grown into a great friend and someone who loves to be loved as much as she loved to give love. She was named Shadow not just because of the obvious color of her hair, but because everywhere you would go in the house, she would be sure to follow. She would great you at the door, follow you upstairs as you brought in the groceries, and find your lap as soon as you sat on the floor.

We took her to a no-kill shelter in Golden on Sunday, and while it was tough to drop her off, it was encouraging that while I was there, 6 different people came in to look at adopting cats. The person who checked her in said that she was a ‘very adoptable pet’ and that they would take good care of her during her stay. They gave us a reference number for her in order to check in on her status, and I said good-bye as I left.

There was little intent on my behalf to actually call and check on her (just wasn’t sure about the emotional ride of always wanting to know her exact status), but I did hang on to the paperwork just in case. Well, on Tuesday afternoon, we received a phone call from the shelter (and the same person who checked her in) and they told us that she was already adopted and on the way to a great new home. There was some sadness involved with the finality of that call, but there was also much happiness as we knew that she would in fact be loved  and cared for in the ways that she deserves.

Since we were gone for the better part of pre and Christmas day, we held off on our Family Christmas gifts until we got back. Ezra was able to open the gifts from Florida while down there, and also opened the gifts from Santa on Christmas morning. We were able to video chat with Nana and Papa from Wisconsin while we opened their gifts, then we opened the gifts from Sioux Falls and from each other. Ezra was given a bunch of the Little People…which he has really taken to having fun with. He also got some great new books – which he might just love even more.

I didn’t know how to categorize this day. It could have been ‘The Travel Day’ or it could have been ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ or it could have been ‘Christmas Day.’ I do know that it was in fact all of the above.

Due to work schedules, we needed to travel back to Colorado on the 25th (which by the way, there are a surprising amount of travelers that use the 25th as an opportunity to go somewhere). The morning was a relaxed chance to spend a few more hours with my Grandparents. We left Jacksonville at noontime and headed down to Orlando via a jam packed interstate system. The airport was filled with people, and the plane was packed to the brim.

The flight was fairly uneventful, but what greeted us in Colorado was anything but. We left Florida in heavy rains and temperatures in the mid-70s. We arrived to Colorado in snow showers and temperatures in the mid-teens. Christmas morning was spent in shorts and a t-shirt, and Christmas night was a ‘White Christmas’ spent in every layer of clothing that we brought along. The car needed to be dug out of 8 inches of snow and the travel home was slow but fairly easy. It snowed for a good portion of the night and into the next morning.

The trip was short but jammed packed with family – and who could ask for more than that? The holiday was different this year for a variety of reasons, but the joy of spending time together was not any different than year’s past. And the topper was being able to spend Christmas night in our own bed, in our new house.

Dinner brought the family together. It’s our family tradition to do the big meal on the 24th, then to open presents afterwards. Family from a little farther south and family from a little farther north gathered at my grandparent’s house for a great meal of sharing, eating, and celebrating.

PS – Ezra did have on his ‘Christmas Finest’ attire earlier in the evening. But you know how the elder citizens of our world like it: hot, hot, hot. We stripped him down to some groovy threads and all quickly became jealous.

Don’t worry, your computer didn’t miss a ‘Day 2’ positing. No photos, no post. We just drove around and took care of last minute stuff anyway – you know, buying gifts and stuff.

A large part of Christmas Eve was spent probably like most of yours: in the kitchen. Ahna, Ezra, and I were able to break away for a trip to the Jacksonville Zoo. We had gone there the last time that we were in Florida (Ezra was 6 months old) and it was really neat to see how much he has grown by marking it against what he was able to do at the zoo. This time Ezra was able to do most of the walking on his own, he fed the giraffes, and touched a few sting rays. He also wandered around the Africa section and enjoyed hanging with the lions and elephants.

There are some really great photos in this batch (as most of the posts….). The big one below was taken from inside the main African enclosure looking back at Ezra, who was looking at the animals from the fence. Don’t ask how I got it, it’s a trade secret.