Holidays
January 5, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Whew. Can’t say that I’m too disappointed that the holiday season is over. Sure, having family around and seeing Ezra enjoy himself has been a great experience, but there was a gigantic hole in this year’s celebrations that just couldn’t be filled with any amount of presents, decorations, cheer, or music. Being bombarded with a never ending barrage of “merry” or “happy” or “best wishes” or “2011 was awesome for us” or “joyous” or “new year” does take it’s toll – especially when feeling those things are a passing notion at best.
Another contributing factor to a less-than-stellar season was my work schedule: at work for the Thurs/Fri of Thanksgiving, for 4 of the days of Hanukkah, for the 23/25 of Christmas, and for New Year’s Eve. It certainly was my turn to be at work, and without the seniority to get it off, I had no problem being there….not complaining about that. It just makes it really difficult to celebrate with a family that operates within the schedule of the rest of society. Take an already off year, and compound it with a lot of ‘celebrating at the firehouse’ and things become even more subdued.
We did have some highlights of the season, and foremost was the inclusion of family. Without the ability to travel at all during that time period due to work, we were fortunate to have family come to us. Dave and Mary Jo spent the Christmas week here in Colorado, and we had the pleasure of spending 10 days with some of my family from Israel who were here on vacation (even got a day skiing in with them). The best thing about having family here was certainly the distraction that they provided, the need to focus on something else some of the time.
Despite everything, we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving together (a day early, and again at the firehouse), we did get to spend Christmas morning together (thanks Scott for holding over for a couple hours), we were able to light a few nights of the candles (thankfully that holiday is designed to last eight nights), and New Year’s was spent….well, who cares, it was New Year’s (2011 did have some good moments, but by and large, I hope that it has a wonderful existence in the past – never to be relived again).
A resolution for the new year? Not normally into those. Any day seems like a good day for a change…but here is one that I can think of: cry just a little less and smile just a little more. This year already hasn’t started off with a lot of reasons to believe that this will be easy, but one can always hope, right? That said, here is some help in that goal: pictures of Ezra almost always make me smile (you will notice the spot on the tree that Ezra decorated – everything facing the wrong way, as well as the different take on the Christmas tree photo – swirly).
Photo Dump
January 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment
A selection of random images from the past two months that haven’t made it to the blog (but may have appeared elsewhere) in any other format (that I can remember).
A Mission To Mars
November 11, 2011 by 3 Comments
An astronaut. A candy bucket. A fun night.
This year’s version of Halloween featured a bummer (I had to work) and a special guest (my Aunt from Israel), but still was centered on Ezra’s planetary exploration of the neighborhood candy-producing solar systems.
As Ezra does have a small allergy to peanuts, we try to avoid them as much as possible. I think that we were all amazed at how much candy contains peanuts, or cannot promise to be peanut free. After weeding through Ezra’s stash, his got a lot smaller, and ours got a lot bigger. But, it would be nice if there were more peanut free candy givers out there (I hesitate to say that we didn’t even consider it this time)….take note for next year.
A Trip To The Pumpkin Patch
October 19, 2011 by 2 Comments
Cold and windy seems to be the recent theme when it comes to spending time outdoors. I suppose that could be attributed to either dumb luck or to the changing seasons….let’s go with a little of both. We took a recent trip up to Anderson Farms to hang at their Fall Festival for a few morning hours, and we were treated to all sorts of cold in between the lightly scattered rain showers and the 20mph wind gusts. Ezra had a lot of fun feeding the goats, playing in a wooden train, and running like crazy through three differently sized mazes – including the large corn maze. We ended the morning with a long trip out to their pumpkin patch (long because you have to ride a wagon and you are on their time table – which is apparently indifferent to the current weather situation). While out at the pumpkin patch, we were able to pick a few pumpkins to bring home – trust me on this one…the camera was inside my jacket being protected from one of those brief and ill-timed rain showers. A few wind-whipped red cheeks later, we wrapped it all up with a cozy car ride home.
A Couple Random Shots Of Ezra
October 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment
We are amazed and astounded at his continuing growth in writing ability. He absolutely loves to write all of our names, and his enjoyment of doing it is really starting to show in his ability to write better and better.
Fashion statements by Ezra.
Sit in a box? Sure, no problem. Sounds fun to me.
Ezra’s Year 3 Video
October 7, 2011 by 2 Comments
A little (and by little, I mean 4 months) overdue, but here is Ezra’s thrid year in 3 minute video awesomeness.
The Life of a Little Hippie 