Long Update...Part Un

I just realized that I didn't post at all in December. Oops. Sorry about that.

The holidays were great! I was at all three of our Christmas Eve services at church (none of which had skits - hallelujah!!). Chad, Jina, and Ella came to the 5pm with me and then we went out to dinner. I was in choir and did flute stuff for the 8pm and 11pm. It was a loooong day, but a rich, meaningful one. I spent Christmas day over at Ella's. We opened gifts in the morning (all morning! the grandparents sent tons of gifts for that precious child!), which was tons of fun. Ella got lots of fun books, toys, and clothes to last her quite awhile. We've been having lots of fun playing and dressing her up these past couple weeks!

One thing that was terrific about Christmas day was that it started to snow! First it was just slushy and I was reminded of the falling grape slurpies that the French peas threw over the wall of Jericho in that Veggie Tales movie. But then the snowflakes got big and puffy and the snow actually started to stick, even though it was 37 degrees. Jina and I took Ella and the dog for a walk in the snow that afternoon. The flakes fell on our eyelashes (mine and Ella's as Jina claims she just has "Asian stumps" for eyelashes) and Ella's little cheeks got all rosy. Lovely.

The days following Christmas were low-key, aside from the drama with my car getting new brakes. It's a really long story, so I'll just leave y'all with this bit of advice: NEVER GO TO FIRESTONE FOR YOUR CAR. The service was terrible, to say the least, and the whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. Thankfully, my car wasn't fixed by Firestone (they just did a diagnostic that was terrible), so Chad and I got my car to Les Schwaab, where we had exceptional customer service at a price nearly $500 lower than Firestone!

Well, this is the end of Part 1 of my long update. I need to head to the gym before they close!

More later...