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Love is In the Air...

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

--Carl Gustav Jung

I read this in today's Star Tribune, and I thought it was lovely. Hopefully you have a sweet Valentine's Day planned. We're making a nice dinner, having a chocolately raspberry filled dessert, and probably watching a movie. I quiet evening without spectacular plans, but the type of night I've been longing for in the midst of baby busy-ness, musical craziness, and life in general.

Happy Heart Day, everyone!

Almost February!?!?!

I looked at the calendar this morning, and I was shocked to see that January is coming to an end. I'm not going to lie, it's been a crazy month. We've been running around like crazy as musical season is in full swing, and it requires some creative shuttling to and from daycare along with late nights for Evan's mommy. One month down, one to go. We have about twenty rehearsals until opening night, and right now it's hard to imagine we'll be ready. Our rehearsals have, to this point, been held at the junior high. Our performances are on the high school stage. We cannot use the space until the One Act Play season ends (this week or next). Everything starts to fall into place once we're in our performance space. We have a great group of kids this year, and I know our production of Oklahoma! will be memorable.

In family news, we've been busy keeping tabs on my parents after their big kidney donation/transplant. Mom's new nickname is NAPA. She and dad are doing well--we went to visit them this weekend, and it will be nice when they can finally get home. All my blogging efforts have been channeled into their Caring Bridge site, so I'm sorry I've let this blog slide.

January is always hard for us. It's dark, cold, and long. Thankfully, we've come out the other end relatively unscathed. February should go quickly, and we'll be at spring break (at least I will be) before we know it.

I could write about many other things job related, but perhaps I'll save them for another (soon to come??) post.

Christmas Re-cap

Whew... it's the night before we go back to work, and I realize that I haven't blogged for almost a month. To my credit, December is very busy around here, and I vowed to eliminate things that could be eliminated from my schedule in order to enjoy the season a bit.

In spite of that, I still found myself rushing around most of the month. We DID get everything we needed to complete done, and Christmas came and went in its typical festive fashion. Here are some highlights:

1) Watching Evan's eyes light up as he reached for shiny ornaments on the tree.
2) Watching Evan's delight as we pointed out his fuzzy stocking on the wall.
3) Watching Evan try to figure out how to unwrap a gift.
4) Watching Evan's delight as Faith, our yellow lab, helped him tear wrapping paper.

Hmmm... do you see a pattern here? This Christmas was all about watching Evan. His first was marked by lots of excitement over pretty, shiny, and crinkly things along with an abundance of noisy, plastic stuff (most of it made in China) from his grandparents. It was fun! I can't wait until next year when he actually "gets" it.

We had a nice visit with our parents up north, and we were even able to spend a few short days at home before the work routine fires up again.

Our Christmas (and life in general) present to ourselves was a new mode of transportation. Our trip "Up North" in my college car, affectionately dubbed "the sardine can" from this point forward, spurred on our desire to find something bigger and more family friendly. Josh did a search on Carsoup.com, and we found, drove, and purchased a 2005 Chrysler Town & Country yesterday. It's lovely.

Happy New Year to you all!