Christmas break

Well, I'm back from Christmas break!  And it was most excellent.  So excellent, in fact, that I never even broke out the camera.  Sometimes life is too good to take pictures.  As a result, I have none of...

- coincidentally sitting right in front of one of my best friends and his sister on the flight home
- any of the tasty food we ate (including homemade pizza, macaroni and cheese, Cafe Río, sausage rolls, wheat chili with cornbread, etc.)
- the excitement that was Christmas Day
- my entire family being together!
- driving around the hometown that I love
- seeing a best friend for the first time (in real life) in way too long
- playing the newest Harry Potter SceneIt? and being pleasantly surprised by the challenge
- playing Minute To Win It and watching people do crazy and difficult stunts
- playing Nertz, a family classic
- Rachel's 16th (!) birthday
- Joel in his new footie pajamas :)
- Dad's new surround sound system
- scanning my great-grandma's recipes to put into a family history book
- Michael, Kelli, Rachel, Joel, and I running after Brooke and Jon's car as they left - twice
- having dinner with my fourth grade teacher
- surprise meeting with one of my great friends/seminary teachers and his wife
- seeing another of my seminary teachers that I love
- going through boxes of my old things and finding some real treasures
- playing air hockey and soundly whipping Joel's booty (hey, I need one game I can beat him in! :)
- etc.

Such a fun break! and a much-needed one.  It was so nice to be home - and not just the house part of home, but the city and family parts, too.  A huge shout-out to Joel for letting me be home for almost two weeks and to my parents for doing so much for all of us while we were there!  It was an excellent Christmas :)