Merry Merry!

As I downloaded my photos from Christmas in Jacksonville, I noticed 95% of them were of Mya ;) How can I not take that many pictures when she is this cute! Our hearts melted each time she yelled "Auntie", or tried out "Mabolls" (Marbles) and "Uncle". And we all laughed every time she said "Cockle-doodle-do" and "Up! Up!".

Now we just have to figure out to post her Christmas card with her on Santa's lap.

Simon Family Christmas

Our Christmas celebration came early this year with the Simons. With -25 degree temps outside, it was nice to be able to sit by their Christmas tree and eat some delicious Chili's. If only we could celebrate every year with Chili's.

While there, we got to open gifts, put together puzzles and watch the boys tumble around. It is pretty unbelievable that Ethan and Lucas are walking and are already toddlers! And we still get to giggle at the different things that Emily says like "Accidents happen" and " I get to crawl into my mommy and daddy's bed because there are monsters in my room."

We got to open our gifts from the McDaniels as well and we got our NEW LIGHT! Yeah! Can't wait to see Ryan put it up in our dining room! Oh, and of course, to have it displayed will be nice as well.

Da Bulls

Here we are at our third annual Bulls game. This year we had the best seats yet - we weren't in the last row of seats, nor did we have any unruly fans to deal with. Bulls won against the Jazz 106 to 98. It was of course, good to see Deron Williams as well.

Afterwards, we enjoyed one of our Chicago favorites - Ed and Jean's where we took too many Apple Pie shots. Delicious! But, this could be why I had to take a 3 hour nap today. Woops!

Now we're off to enjoy this wonderful -25 degree weather!

Christmas Vacation

Now all we have to do is wrap the mountain of gifts that is in our guestroom. I wish we would have had a camera as Ryan and I walked home with our tree today through the snow. We found it a little more difficult to get a tree home now that we don't have an SUV. Luckily it wasn't too cold. Again, Ryan did a great job negotiating the price of our tree!

Yes He Did

Laura and I were lucky enough to participate in some history last night. This giant video screen was as close as we got to President-Elect Obama at the Grant Park rally, but just being there with the crowd of 65,000 was exciting enough. Here's how I described it to my parents:

It was really great. The atmosphere at Grant Park kind of reminded me of Wrigley Field this summer when there was a sense of inevitability that things would go our way...fortunately Barack performed in the clutch a little better than the Cubs! It was great to see the mix of attendees at the rally - young, old, white, black, you name it. It was amazing how many people showed up, and everyone was in a good mood and very respectful of Mccain's concession speech, so that was nice. Speaking of which, I'm glad that McCain no longer has to pander to the crazy folks and can get back to being the sensible guy that he's always been. I really do admire him and either with a spot in the cabinet, or as a leader in the Senate, I'm sure him and Barack will be able to work together. CTA ran very smoothly (as did the whole operation) considering the massive amounts of people they were moving around, Daley had all hands on deck as I'm sure he wanted to prove that we're ready for the Olympics. It was surreal to see Michigan Avenue swamped with people after the rally, chanting Yes We Can!

As for Barack, John Kass had a great column today about how far we've come - It wasn't too long ago that MLK, on a visit to Chicago, was hit in the head with a brick and experienced some pretty violent racism. 40 years may seem like a long time to us, but in the context of history it really isn't. It really is inspiring that we live in a country that can not only evolve enough to elect a black man as president, but can evolve quickly enough in 8 years to realize that George W. had this country on a terrible path and we needed to send a message that we were fed up with it.

Here's what the crowd looked like right before they announced that Obama had clinched it. I'm looking forward to showing this post to our grandkids when they're old enough to understand.

Dr. Seuss Would Be Proud

Although we didn't win any awards at the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Halloween party we were at, we did have "the most original costumes" according to a couple of guys standing outside the Belmont El-stop.

In my eyes, that's a better first-place than the party - the guys must have seen atleast 1,000 costumes pass by that night, right?

New York, New York

(photo taken at 4:30am at SNL after after party)










Another fun trip to NYC to visit Pavun and George and of course, to see SNL. Unfortunately, we did not do much sightseeing besides walking around SoHo in the rain, but we did get to watch SNL from Lorne Michael's office (where Eddie Izzard and the cast of Mad Men were also watching it!).

Jon Hamm, from one of our favorite shows, Mad Men was the host, and Coldplay was the musical guest. Ryan will probably even admit that Jon Hamm is one of the most attractive men we have ever seen.

After the show, we attended the cast after-party (where I once again chickened out on getting a photo taken with a celebrity), then the after-after-party and needless to say, I am just now beginning to feel normal. Guess I can't stay out until 5am anymore. Nor should we stay out all night, then fly the next day. Especially when the pilot lands at O'Hare, decides it is too windy, then proceeds to take off again. Scary!

Looking forward to a few weekends of not traveling, but also thinking about our next trip to NYC, whenever that may be.