Christmas 2009

Well, we had a white Christmas and it was a great one. I have not fully recovered from the lack of sleep, over eating, visits, and all the ice and snow. It was wild to come home from hunting down near Del Rio area on Wed. and it be a nice 60 something degrees – then the next day snow, ice, and cold blowing 35mph winds. Wow!

It was nice, but it held some of out visitors at home because of the roads. I got stuck about two blocks from the house, and my father-in-law got stuck that day as well one block north of where I did. There were folks abandoning vehicles all over town. Kind of funny in a way. It did make for a nice Christmas around the fireplace.

The kids all loved the eats & treats, the gifts, and all the fun. Kaden woke us up before daylight the las three days to make sure he got the most out of the day. We opened our family gifts on Christmas Eve and they were excited. We all got awesome gifts. Then old Santa came later that night as everyone was sleeping. He stuffed our stocking and the hearth of the fireplace. He even brought Keagan a new iPod touch. Kaden got a huge tent, canteen, camp cookware, laterns, etc. Keagan became deaf to us shortly after turning her iPod on, and our house is a disaster. Santa moved the coffee table into our bedroom, and it still has not made it back to the living room. LOL

Last night we camped out in the Living room in Kade’s tent. All of us, Jace, Keagan, Kade, and I all stuffed in the tent (with memory foam matresses LOL). We watched Santa Buddies on the TV, then went to sleep about midnight. Kade woke us up for a breakfast call sometime around 5AM – before daylight I know. We had breakfast between the tent and TV – served in his camp cookware for authenticity. Then we finally tore down the camp and was ready for others to come over and visit.

My wife is wishing she would not have bought me an Apple TV for Christmas – I’ve been hacking it the last couple of days and getting all my pictures (5382 of them), songs (3874 of them) and movies (500 GB’s worth) on it for viewing. LOL It is great! I was a little disappointed with it at first since it acted up. It acted more like a windows machine than an Apple. I think I’ve got it going my way now though. I love being able to ssh into something and mess with it. Try that on a windows box of… Big thanks to Chris S. for teaching me the SSH and unix stuff – I could not help but think of him while I was doing this. Once I have it the way I want it, then I will have to update a few guys that work for Honeywell. They’ve been interested in hacking it could be done without messing it up. Answer – yes.

Just for historical purposes – here are the gifts I received this year:
Money (always a great gift)
A “Recording Light” for my soon to be studio (I was even more proud that George could remember that – I mentioned it back in the summer! LOL)
An Apple TV (for the record I guessed this – my wife can’t lie very well – which is a good thing)
A hunting blind (Primos pop-up)
A Bore Sight kit
A Compass
Socks and T-shirts
Gift Cards (iTunes & Amazon)
…and more fun than you can shake a stick at watching the kids. It was all I could do to hold Kade back while Jace got ready with the camera. LOL

I neglected to post about Oliver coming in from California as well. I apologize Oliver, I still have not forgotten you. Oliver was a close friend of Kevin’s and David’s (Jace’s brothers)…and a close friend to the rest of the family as well. It was my first time to meet him, but he made a good impression. It was nice to meet the “tounge”. LOL I saw the pictures on Keagan’s camera as I was adding them to iPhoto – sorry again Oliver.

Anyway, I am trying to upload some photos which you can view at the link below. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and that they have a blessed new year!

Photo Link –>