Merry Christmas!!!

This year's Christmas adventure. . .is going to be in sunny Los Angeles, California! : ) Ari and I are both really excited to get to spend Christmas with his Mom in L.A. for the first time. I must admit that leaving all of this wonderful, well, Winter Wonderland that we call home, and heading for palm trees and 70 degree weather feels a little odd! Originally, we had thought that we might spend the holiday with Alice, Amar and Michlien, (Ari's brother and sister,) and Andrew, (Our nephew.) But we soon realized that we would need to fly instead of drive, due to my back still healing, etc... and we are a little tight on money. Also, we have a friend who is in the Army and is stationed in Colorado Springs who was planning on coming over to spend Christmas with us. So, we had settled on staying in Colorado and doing all in our power to spend next Christmas in L.A. On Wednesday, Alice called and said that her husband had to fly back to Greece emergently to be with his ailing brother, and that she was going to be all alone for Christmas. : ( We called our army friend, Rob, and asked if it would be o.k. to change plans so last minute, and of course he understood. (Beside that, he had a new girl friend and he had secretly wanted to spend Christmas with her instead.) Sweet, Wonderful Alice helped to get us a flight and we leave on the 20th!

I have about EIGHT loads of laundry to do, some fudge to make and refridgerate for an hour, before the annual Christmas party for the Marshal's deptartment, and wrap our gift-exchange gift. And then I have to pack for myself and Ari, plan for and find some one who can take care of our cat and guinea pig, etc...! Oh, and I have to finish Christmas shopping and wrapping presants, shipping presants, and on and on it goes. This year will be very interesting, needless to say!

I have never had a near-tropic Christmas before. I am really looking forward to getting to spend Christmas with Ari's mom and siblings, it's going to be great. We will post some pictures soon. Merry Christmas to you all! Remember to slow down and enjoy all of the craziness because you never know what the next year will bring. Take time to stop and smell the poiencetias! : ) Time goes by so quickly and it's not showing any signs of slowing down the older we get. (I'm not saying that we're "old," mind you.) But you know what I mean. Merry Christmas to my wonderful Friends and Family. We love you all and wish you a Christmas full of PEACE, JOY and WONDERMENT! We pray that God will bless you through out the new year to come.

With lots of Christmas Cheer, Ari and Kristen