Year's end, year's beginning

Back in Philly for New Year's Eve, we spent the last week and a half in South Texas. To me, it is still a somewhat strange and foreign place, but to Michelle, it is home. The weather got progressively better while we were there. Christmas weekend we went to Michelle's parents' place about an hour north of Corpus Christi and stayed inside almost the whole time because of wind and rain. But the day we went to the gulf coast, pictured at right, it was quite nice, though still windy.

Because of the timing of work and everything, we declared Saturday the 24th our 'Christmas', or at least, our day of exchanging gifts and eating ridiculous amounts of food. No wait, the food part was all week. Anyway, it was a nice cozy family affair with lots of wrapping paper and spiked eggnog.

I took the opportunity of this vacation to learn to crochet. It may seem an odd endeavor, but my intention is to figure out something to do with the vast numbers of plastic bags that we've accumulated and can't figure out what to do with since they're not recyclable and we don't want to throw them away. My fiber-artist friend Janell delivered a crochet hook for me one early morning a few weeks ago then let me borrow a book about it - I still haven't had any success with the plastic, but I'm still learning the stitches for now anyway...

This is the end of the year, too, and what a year. I wouldn't have this blog if it weren't for the brain tumor, but looking back on it, it would have been a pretty incredible year anyway. For my own edification, I'll list a few things, not particularly brain tumor related, that stand out:

• getting married
• driving cross-country with my team from work (who also happen to be my friends)
  
• visiting North Carolina - twice - and taking the train back once
  
• getting a tour of the new Smithsonian Air and Space Museum from the Director
  
• watching humpback whales (on our honeymoon, no less) off of Cape Cod
  
• learning AJAX for reals
• learning the foxtrot with my wife
• riding a bicycle built for two with my wife on Martha's Vineyard
  

That's a good year. I started out 2006 thinking of stability and what I got turned my world upside-down. I'm starting out 2007 also thinking of stability - here's to the New Year.