Hi-Ho! Hi-Ho! It's (Back) To Work We Go... *whistles*

So, after the plague hit our family, it was back to work for us both. Jeff is continuing to work on getting his paperwork done to become a broker with another firm, and in the meantime he's continuing as an account manager for AT&T. So far, this has been very successful for him, and his boss has encouraged him to look into other more "9-5" positions within the company. Apparently, he has made some great progress and made some good contacts, so here's hoping there's more growth in the future!

Jen is continuing her work as well. She started school again this semester. She has a teacher she is, let's say, not the fondest of again for her current class. The one positive is that it's only a 10-week course! She also has to complete another externship and has signed up for that as well. She will start that at the beginning of March, meaning there will be a 2-week overlap between her book coursework and her externship, then she will continue to extern until the end of April. The site she picked is one local to Fremont and now she has to set up schedules for her and her supervisor. They shouldn't conflict with work and hopefully she can get a lot of extra hours.

We are also trying to work on New Year's resolutions. We have the usual: work out, lose weight, etc. But this year, we've both added a reading challenge. There was an article on a 52-book challenge that Jen came across and she thought she'd be crazy enough to try it. So far, she has read 6 books required and it's only 3 weeks into the year. Once school really picks up (and that two weeks of overlap kick in) she may fall behind, but in the meantime she's reading as much as she can. This link will take you to the PopSugar Reading Challenge that she's trying.

Jeff wanted to do one as well, but his is a little shorter. His is a Bingo-card challenge, based off of the original one Jen is doing. This one is only 24 books on a card (the middle card is a free square) and he's trying to keep up! Below is his Bingo card. If you decide to join, let us know and we can compare books! Happy reading!!

Napa

Last weekend, Jen got to go to Napa to celebrate our niece's 21st birthday. Most of the family went up on Friday, but because Jen had to work, she went up Saturday instead with her sister, Myra. It was a pretty area, and even though she didn't drink, she still had a nice time getting  away for a day amd just relaxing with her family. They stayed at a nice little resort, ate good food, toured the Andretti Winery and had manicures and pedicures. We may have to go there again to visit sometime soon!

The Family

A panoramic shot of the vineyard

The Vino Bello Resort's outdoor fireplace

That's a LOT of wine!

The archway to the winery

Fa-Ra-Ra-Ra-Ra...

The Christmas season has come and gone, and this has to be one of the craziest ones yet. We started out the holiday on Sunday the 21st, when we went with Jen's sister Myra to the San Francisco Symphony. They had a live version of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and it was so much fun. During the sing-along portion, the three of us sang Deck the Halls, but the way they sing it on A Christmas Story (the movie with Ralphie and the BB gun. Google it) even though we got some weird looks. A good start to the holiday season!

The 22nd was Jen's brother's birthday, so she drove her sister's down to have lunch with him in San Jose. When she got home she didn't think she felt well. And that's when the chaos started.

Jen canceled her sessions on the 23rd because she was running a fever. We suspect one of her clients got her sick, because we found out they had the flu AND bronchitis. This made an already-tricky Christmas (more on that later) ever more so, and she didn't get to go to either her parents' house for their celebration, or come out of the room on the 25th when the Perry side got together in the living room. It was interesting, though. We decided to give her an iPad so we could Skype and open presents "together" without getting anyone sick. Kind of lame, but it worked.

Now Jeff had to take care of our food preparations not only without Jen, but without power! Around 2 PM most of Newark had a power out that lasted several hours. This made it necessary to take the half-cooked turkey to Jen's sister's house in Fremont, and pushed back dinner about 2 hours. Dinner was still good, and we got a lot of nice things from family. Jeff got a Samsung Gear Fit (kind of like a FitBit, but it links to the phone and does a lot more cool stuff), and Jen got a lot of clothes and books. We enjoyed as much holiday as we could, considering Jen was so sick. She stayed in bed until New Year's and even then, we kept it quiet. Her cough is still horrible, and apparently she wasn't the only one to get sick. One of her clients also has the flu, so she only worked two days so far. We will have to see what the new year brings; she may be off until the 6th!

We will have to post the Year In Review in it's own separate post, so stay tuned...