Here is the picture for our 2009 Christmas Card:

The full size picture can be found on Flickr.

My family is in Evan’s room singing ‘Joy to the World’ like a bunch of drunk carolers… very loud and not in very good key. But they are giggling halfway through the refrain.

That’s probably why drunk carolers always look like they’re having so much fun.

I took Sam sledding for the first time this year.  We got enough snow from our storms earlier this week to open up the sledding hill in Sibley Park.  Sam was excited to go because this time we were going sledding with our brand new snow tubes.  We got to the hill and walked up the big hill first.  Sam did his best to climb up the big hill all by himself, but a very nice girl helped him up the last 10-12 yards (I was carrying both tubes).  Sam and I went to this same hill last year, multiple times in fact.  So when we got to the top I was a little surprised to hear him get a nervous about going down.  Sam finally climbed onto his tube and went down the hill with no problems.  After Sam started down, I got on to my tube and went down after him.

And when I got to the bottom of the hill, it was at then I realized I was cheated as a child.  Cheated as a child who did more than his share of sledding.  If you ask my Mom she can attest I spent plenty of winter evenings sitting on my butt trying to go as fast I could go.  The park behind our house on Harold Drive was great because it was so close and the hill was partially lit from a nearby skating rink (warming house too).  The skating park for our house on Bryant Avenue was basically in a bowl surrounded by sledding hills.

So why was I cheated?  Never in my life have I had as smooth and comfortable of a ride down a hill as I did on that snow tube tonight.  Never.  Ever.  Period.  I got all the fun of going fast, but none of the bumps, spills or butt chills from a traditional plastic sled.  Sam thought it was the greatest thing ever too.  He commented all night long about how he’s not getting his snow pants wet or that snow was getting in his face.  In fact it was one of the first things he said when he got in the door and saw Holly. 

So tonight I rectified this tragic gap in my childhood experiences.

Sam is getting to play out in the snow… all by himself. I’m wedged between happiness and unending nervousness. So to come to a compromise with myself I sent the dogs out to watch him.

Evan appears to be our budding technologist.  Holly caught Evan reading a copy of my MacWorld magazine in the kitchen this morning.  Just can't put down the good stuff I guess.  

I was in charge of getting a few items for the boys for the Advent/Christmas calendar house.  I just realized I gave Evan a very large jingle bell on Holly's day off with the boys just before a blizzard hits Mankato.  Probably not the wisest of choices. 

Sorry Holly.  Honest.

As I mentioned previously, I'm looking at moving the MyGeekDaddy blog over to a new hosting platform this holiday season.  I've started to make some progress in getting it setup.  You can take a sneak peek at the layout and watch progress by going here: Verly.Me.

When the blog is ready to move, you will automatically get redirected to the new site by still using http://mygeekdaddy.net, so any short cuts will still work.  The next task right now is to get the 2009 Christmas picture finished so we can get cards out asap.

Happy Holidays everyone!