Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

First off, there must be a waiver granted for the number of pictures we put up of Isabella in this blog. We had a wonderful December preparing for Christmas. Although Paul did a good deal of flying, he also got to have the 21st through the 2nd pretty much off. Christina and Isabella kept busy with different play groups and festive events, and of course with all of the shopping for Christmas. I am afraid to say that with all of the presents from Santa, family, and friends our dear daughter got a regular spoiling this Christmas (but you will see this in a picture later on...). Anyway both Paul and Christina got to take Bella to see Santa for the first time and she did wonderful. When all other kids were quickly sent to tears at the mear thought of this large red-suited man holding them, Bella went so far as to hold his hand during the picture.From this point on, whenever she see's an older man with a beard she quickly identifies him with "Santa, Ho Ho Ho." After sitting with Santa, she got her first Christmas present of the year! It was a nice, relaxing week leading up to Christmas, which was a definite change of pace for all of us. On one evening walk to see the neighborhood Christmas lights, Bella correctly identified her shadow on the ground. After staring at it for about ten seconds she let out a true horror film type scream and collapsed to the ground. For the rest of the walk she would not be put down, nor would she stop talking about her "Shadow on the ground" and saying "Bye-Bye Shadow". Mom and Dad where left with the difficult task of explaining that her Shadow going bye-bye was not going to be a very likely event.
At about 6am Bella woke up on Christmas morning, and we were able to hold her off for about 20 minutes before it was time to go downstairs. After we did our gift opening (note it is still dark out after we are done opening presents), we completed the morning celebration with Christina's tradition of Egg's Benedict for breakfast. In the afternoon we went over to a friends house for a wonderful dinner. We met about 25 of our friends there and had a great time the rest of the evening drinking, eating, eating, and socializing. We are now looking forward to the New Year and to our next set of visitors who will be coming in January! Bella cant wait to see Nono, Nona, Auntie Sarah and Auntie Nae Nae. Hope all had a wonderful Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

(Had a video to load but ran into technical difficulties, sorry :(

Where was November...

Wow, it has been a long time since our last blog and we have a lot to tell. But as pictures are worth a thousand words and all, we are just going to put a lot of them in to save us some typing. As soon as Paul got back from his TDY to Vegas, we decided to take a short trip down to the southwestern part of England. On the way down we stopped at Stonehenge, which was cool to see (although honestly if you have seen the pictures, you've seen it).
We then made our way up to RAF Fairford, which is another military base located in the town of Fairford where we stayed the night. The town was quaint and wonderful, home to the oldest stained-glass windows in all of the UK. The next day we made it over to the city of Bath, which is a really neat city. They have the remains of an old roman bath that was built there due to the natural hot springs back in 100 AD. It was really cool to see some of the old bridges, churches and other old architecture around the area as well.

Finally it was time to head home...so we could celebrate Christina's Birthday! Paul took Christina out to a nice hotel for lunch, and then they got to go to see a movie as well. It had been a long time since they got to do this, so it was a special treat (thanks again Sara!). Then in a few more Days, Opa came! On the day he arrived we went in to London to see some sights, but it was a cold day and Bella was having a hard time so we had to call it a day early on.
After that Christina and Bella took Opa around to some of the sights around town over the next couple of days. Then we all got to spend Thanksgiving together over at the Houston's house, which was a great time. The next day we wandered about the campus of Cambridge and saw some beautiful sights. Finally we all got to take a trip around northeastern England to see the Ely cathedral and the Castle Rising castle. We all loved having Opa out here as our first visitor, and Bella really enjoyed getting to know him again.

And then the final good news of the month, Christina is pregnant again! And as Gary will appreciate, the due date is the 4th of July! So please keep Christina and the Baby in your prayers, and ttfn (ta-ta for now!).