Still Trying to Recover...

Dear Family,

We've had a fun and busy start to the year so far, and I'm still trying to recover. :o) On January 1st we flew to Omaha, and then drove to Lincoln, Nebraska to visit Jeff's sister and her family for almost a week. We had such a fantastic time, ate incredible food, and did lots of fun things everyday, starting with an ice-cream and candy sundae bar the night we got there, continuing with a trip to the Natural History museum, then a store where you paint your own ceramics, then a HUGE indoor playground (think McDonalds playplace, but multiplied about a dozen times or more with four levels), having family tournaments with their new "Xbox Connect" (you jump and run in place and it uses your movements to control the game), then watching old family videos of Jeff in high school (while the kids were in hysterics, seeing their daddy look so different), then going to the visitors center and cemetary at Winter Quarters, then the Omaha Zoo (it was amazing!), then attending a swim meet where some of the cousins were competing, and finally ending up with a trip to the Lincon Children's Museum. Each day was so much fun, and we had the best time just sitting around chatting. Plus the zoo was so much better than the one we have in North Carolina! It was just a great week. We had such a fantastic time with their family (the kids LOVED playing with cousins that were actually their age--Jarom was in heaven the whole time) that we've all had a little case of the post-vacation blues.

My own personal post-vacation blues started when I had to do a mountain of laundry upon our return (which I still haven't finished, two days later), and then I had to put all our Christmas stuff away by myself, because I oh-so-stupidly left it up while we were gone for sentimental reasons. Never again! It was a huge amount of work, and it stopped feeling like I was starting the new year fresh, like I've felt other years. I was just desperate to get done, and not keel over over everything was packed away. Also, the sad, dead tree was literally raining needles, the whole time we were putting ornaments and lights away. Yuck. I'm almost convinced to commit that worst Christmas crime of all: a fake tree. I love the smell, and the annual tree-picking trip, but it sure might be nice not to have to put lights on, then take lights off, and especially, not have to vacuum 5 times only to still find needles embedded in the carpet.

Well, that's about all we have to report right now. Things are good, the kids still have 1 and 1/2 more weeks of track-out, and I'm almost done with the laundry.

Love,
Katie, Jeff, and the kids