What's Been Up?

What's been up for the last month or so?

• Thanksgiving. We went on the road and visited our friends from St. Croix, the Lopez family, in their new home in Houston. It was a short trip, but a delightful one. The Lopez family may be the most lovely people we know.

It was also the first vacation I have taken in about six years – since the 2006 trip to the Oregon coast, I think – unless you count my whole peripatetic life of late as a vacation. And even then, I worked a little on the computer. But there was something about locking the house, getting in the car and driving that just felt good.

I wasn't crazy about Houston, especially driving in Houston, but I enjoyed the trip very much.

• We had to cut that trip short because the East Jefferson football team continued to succeed and we had to get Max home Friday in time for the game. They won. They kept winning until they played the championship game in the Superdome. VERY COOL. They were playing the number two team in the state, the defending champs, and they pulled it off. The E.J. Warriors are the state champs! Hooray! And Max played in the Superdome!

• Christmas was nice. I've been told that my Christmas list was too boring for words, but I really do enjoy my new potato peeler. Really! Man, that shucks the skin off spuds like nobody's business! We enjoyed the lights at LaFreniere Park again – but man it was cold! With a stiff breeze that brought the temp into the 30s. We enjoyed the lights, but we didn't linger.

• And maybe it was the cold, or the weird hours we tend to keep, or just the luck of the draw, but we've also spent too much of the last few weeks sick. It's always one of us. First Max, then me, then Tori and Kate. Then Max again Christmas day, and back through the loop. Coughing and hacking and the whole thing.

Unpleasant, and made everything more difficult. But we're OK. We enjoyed the holidays, and we'll get by.

• That's not all that's been going on of course, but it gives the highlights. There's been much in the way of writing, as well, but I'll get to that. And much in the way of reading, and some movies. I'll get to all that, too.