Merry Christmas...

Wow, we're really bad about this, aren't we?

Well, reporting in for our holiday now. I guess it's better late than never.

Despite the hardships, Jeff and I had a good Christmas. The night before Christmas Eve, our home teacher came over and dropped off Christmas cookies that his wife (our Visiting Teacher, coincidentally) had made. They rocked! They inspired Jeff to do the same, but alas, they just weren't.

On Christmas Eve we did the usual: For as long as I could remember, the night of Christmas Eve always belonged to my parents. In hindsight, there is some wisdom to this, as that allowed my siblings and I to visit our in-laws on Christmas Day (more on that in a bit). It was a bit smaller this year, you will note in the pictures once Jeff uploads them: It was my parents, Jeff and I, my siblings and their families, and my grandma and cousin Jimmy: 15 people total. To some that seems like a lot, but we've had Christmas Eve's with EVERYONE over, and those days easily totaled over 40! But I personally enjoyed our small party. A few of us were sick though: My nephew William was just getting over a cold, as was my sister, Myra. Jeff got that pneumonia-type sickness he had a month or so ago, and I started getting really sick that night. Fortunately we cut out early and everyone had left my parents before 11, a record for us!

The next day we had planned on going to Oakley to Jeff's aunt and uncle's house (they just bought a new one) but that didn't happen. Between us both being sick (I got REALLY bad) and everything we just couldn't pull it off. We did call and talk to them a bunch of times during the day and yesterday too, so hopefully that made up for some of it.

Now we are on to New Year's! So far no resolutions aside from the usual (get healthier, work out more, become super-impressively rich :-) and the usual). But in all honesty, there are a few things we want to work on. Both of us want to refocus on school and saving up more money. Jeff, it appears, will be transferring to Colorado State University either this coming term or the next. Now, don't read into this: We aren't MOVING back to Colorado (darn it)! They offer a correspondence course online so he can get his bachelor's and that is likely the route he will be going.

As for me, I applied to Utah State University for a one-year Speech Pathology program that should have me done by next year. Working with the kids at Easter Seals helped me to realize that this field seems to be my calling in life: working with children with special needs. The only way to make it in this field, however, is to earn a graduate degree in some specialty like Speech-Path.

Well, that's enough of an update for now. I have to start dinner in a little bit. Hopefully I won't take so long next time to update you all on our going's-on!

Update

Yah, so much for that "Every Week We'll Update This" promise!

Well, I thought that, since I've got some downtime here (I'm at Stanford) I'd go ahead and give you guys a little bit of an update.

The good news: Jeff has a job! He is a logistics supervisor (Yah, I don't know what that is either... some kind of manager) at the Gap in NewPark Mall. He seems to really enjoy the job and the environment (I think anything is better than food service!) and his new supervisors are great.

The bad news: The house we put an "offer" on ended up getting sold to another family. So no lake house, no super-cool bath tub for me to soak in. Now we're not sure what to do: Extend our lease at the apartment or keep looking. We found two houses in Fremont that are in nice areas that are in our budget last night, so Jeff is going to follow up on that. Although I had wanted my own home by Christmas, it looks like that's not feasible, so if we can pull this off in the next few months, I'd be happy!

My biggest concern is room for the critters. The chinchillas need AC and Chris needs enough room to run around. Aside from that, everything else is not important; just desired.

Aside from that, everything's the same. Chris is rambunctious. The chinchillas are doing well, and we suspect one girl might be pregnant. Tomorrow morning she's going to the vet, so we'll find out then!

So we'll try to be better at keeping you up to date with stuff.