Happy 2009!

I took a week off from blogging, since we went to Maryland to celebrate with family and friends. To be honest, as much fun as we had, it is nice to be home with our pets and our stuff. We missed Ozzy and Frankie and Fu as much as they missed us. We are spending today putting away the Christmas decorations, and I'm sure that we will figure out what to do with our tree (the only info I've found so far about Christmas tree pickup or recycling seems to relate to last year!). Someone asked me whether RI felt like home yet, and I have to say that it does. I guess, as hokey as it sounds, home really is where your family and the other things that you choose to surround yourself with are. We are pretty settled in at this point, although we still don't feel like we have friends here. We have made lots of acquaintances, and I'm sure that at least some of them will become friends as time goes on, but we don't really have people whom we hang out with on a regular basis yet.

There are lots of photos of our holidays and trip south, most notably Christmas, Brookside Gardens, the Dallas/Eagles game, Hanukkah at my mom's, and New Year's. You will notice that Jess is not in any photos after Christmas - that is because she flew to Dubai to visit my sister-in-law, Kristin, and her husband. We missed her, but she had a great time. I hope that you and those you care about have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2009.