Holidays

Grades are in--an A in cell biology and A- in transmission genetics. There's two more classes under my belt and now I am officially halfway done with my master's. I have been telling myself that since the fall semester, but now it's not just my imagination. And it should have been my hardest semester. This spring I just have immunology and evolutionary genetics, and then two rounds of statistics in the summer and fall. The end is in sight!

December was busy, as it always is. We attended Christmas With Wartburg with friends and felt old since we don't know any of the performers anymore. Worked in the lab all the way until Christmas Eve when we headed home for Christmas with the Julseth side of the family and spent Christmas day with my immediate family. Both Chad and Rick were there for the sacred family Christmases and oddly it didn't feel weird at all. I thought it would on Christmas day when it has always just been Mom and Dad and Allyson and I, but the boys blended in well. I forgot that it should have felt different until the morning was over.

I love Christmas with my family. December 24th and 25th are my two favorite days of the year, and this year had many highlights. Besides enlarging our family, my parents had also enlarged their home. I forgot to take pictures, but they added on to the living room, added a bedroom and bathroom downstairs, and converted the old piano room into a bathroom as well. There is now a nice porch on the south side of the house and below the new addition Dad has a new workshop for his woodworking. My favorite additions are the calf room (a mud room where calves born in the cold can come in if they're sick--they used to go in the kitchen), the fireplace made of field rock, and the Christmas tree room, which was supposed to allow the tree to not take up the dining room. Instead, they got a bigger tree that came into the living room. And apparently the tree and the fireplace did not get along well and the tree was dropping needles with every heavy step on the new wood floors.

I did need to document the enormous tree. The original ceiling is 10 foot, and I believe the cathedral ceiling is 13 foot. We took it down and out of the house in pieces (though we should have had more than 2 pieces). The diameter of the thing was impressive!
After 4 days and working cattle for my folks, we came home to Ames for one day before heading to Texas to visit his family. His mom had hip surgery at the beginning of the month, but she was doing great when we got there. So much better than before surgery just a month before. We also picked up Rick's new car, a Ford Escape, complete with the new Sync technology. He can use his cell phone and pick songs off his iPod without ever looking or touching anything but the steering wheel--all voice activated. It also has Sirius satellite radio. Let's just say we were very entertained the whole way home.

Texas was nice--although we weren't there for long we saw most of his family and spent some quality time with his folks. I even tried black eyed peas and collared greens (eaten for good luck and prosperity), though my favorite new year's day festivity was shooting off a variety pack of fireworks in the middle of a field. It was also considerably warmer than Iowa, hitting 70 the first day we were there.

It is so nice to be home. Being gone a week and a half really makes home feel like home. Christmas decorations have been packed, and I cooked tonight (not Rick for a change) and tried a new dessert recipe. Went to the gym, played Wii, it's been a good day. And I have a whole 'nother day of relaxation before I have to go back to work. Back to the routine.