She enjoyed her balloons, the streamers, the presents, and the cake. Oh wait, she didn't enjoy the cake (see movie below). Actually she enjoyed the cake for breakfast the next morning, but evidentally it took her a whole day to warm up to the cream cheese frosting and strawberry cake.
It's been three days since her birthday, and thinking back to the past year, it just seems to have been a blur. As a new parent, I'd have to admit that the past year was the fastest of any of the previous twenty nine. Each day she gets a little taller, a little faster, a little smarter... and a little more fun.
Congrats to Carissa on her milestone, and thanks to everyone for making it a very special day.
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I was tired of getting my hopes up for a ski vacation. It seems like one has been mentioned for the last 3 or 4 years, but it never actually materializes... So when Chris Paxton asked me if I wanted to go for a weekend, I jumped at the chance.
48 inches of snow fell 3 days before we arrived in Ruidoso, New Mexico at Ski Apache ski resort.
We enjoyed nice meals, clean casinos, warm fire places, beautiful weather, and an abundance of snow covered trails.
Geronimo and Wild Onion were my personal favorite runs, as they were groomed and full of powdery snow... and they were just steep enough to make you say "wee" rather than "oh crap, what did I just get myself into..."
For not being on a ski trip in over six years, I fell less times than I have fingers on one hand, so I was proud of myself. I was also proud of the entire group that I went with, as no one broke anything... and everyone played hard.
The only bad part of the trip is that it was a short one. Just long enough to give you the itch to go again real bad. So here's to next year... I'm going skiing, anyone want to go with me?
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Airman First Class Joseph Cherry graduated from Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB, San Antonio on February 2nd, 2007. He now lives at Sheppard Air Force Base in North Texas as he trains to be an F-15 Crew Chief.
Joe graduated with three ribbons including one for Markmanship... Evidentally he's a dead-eye with a M-16.
Joe will find out next week where he will be stationed once he finishes his training, and we're hoping for North Carolina or Florida. On behalf of myself, my family, and all of my friends, I want to congratulate Joe on his accomplishment, and wish him and Loni much success in their upcoming adventure.
We're all very proud of you, and thank you and other's like you for all that you do.
Update: For those of you who haven't heard, Joe and Loni will be stationed in North Carolina together once Joe finishes his tech shool. Congratulations guys!
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Well, I told you I would try to do a better, and here's a start! This is a quick video of Carissa's first Christmas. She got TONS of toys this year including a Radio Flyer Wagon, Bounce & Spin Zebra, Leap Frog Learning Center, Bouncing Tigger, and her own School Bus. Of course, she had just as much fun with the empty boxes and tissue paper!
The download is ~8MB... so it may take a while depending on your internet connection. I'd try to make it smaller, but to be honest, I already trimmed out a lot of stuff, I wasn't going to trim out any more! Enjoy.
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Perhaps the New Year’s resolution for 2007 should be to write more posts on the website. Maybe it’s being busy at work, maybe it’s being busy as new parents, maybe it’s just being lazy, but whatever the reason, we haven’t posted since October. I blame my sister. Had she just sent us anniversary pictures that I requested, I would have at least had a Halloween picture posted of Carissa in her costume. But instead, we had to hold them as ransom.
As it stands, I’ll try to do some quick catch ups:
After my parent’s anniversary party, we celebrated Halloween by attending First United Methodist of Pasadena’s annual costume parade. Carissa’s first costume was a chicken. Why a chicken? Well, I picked a chicken costume because I thought it was cute, and Jonda picked a lady bug costume because she thought it was cute. And Carissa picked the chicken costume out of those two... turns out, I was right… she made a pretty cute chicken. Though I’m sure she would have made a cute lady bug too.
After Halloween, November seemed to fly by… We went to Austin with Dee and Jake to party on Sixth Street. I became sick though before we ever left the hotel, and the weekend was somewhat of a bust. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving as usual at Debbie and Terry’s house. We even got to play a little Texas Hold’em after Turkey. Tico and Lexie flew in from Florida for Thanksgiving, and we enjoyed their company as we watched the Texas A&M Aggies beat t.u. in Austin for the first time since 1994. WHOOP! Given the past couple of years… it was a great season for the Ags. Speaking of Ags, we found out that one of our Aggie friends is going to be a daddy! Congratulations to Dave and Tracy Thomas. Also congrats to Todd and Mary Limbaugh on their upcoming little one. Dave and Todd are my poker pals… something tells me that our poker table conversations might differ a little in the future.
December kicked off early with our annual Christmas trip to Rockport. Carissa got to hang out with people her size. Hunter and Alex be-bopped all over the place and Great Granny and Papaw Slaughter brought all of them stuffed horses for Christmas. We played our yearly Christmas Bingo, and Jonda won me a pretty nice set of tools. We taught Mom and Odie how to play progressive rummy… wait scratch that… we taught Mom how to play progressive rummy. We taught Odie how to hate progressive rummy.
We followed up Rockport by taking Jonda’s parents out to dinner in Kemah for the Christmas boat parade. As usual it was a lot of fun and the boats were crazier than ever. We saw a boat full of Elvis Impersonators, topless college boys (in 40 degree weather), drunk Santas, vikings, pirates and girl scouts. It was a fun way to celebrate Cassandra’s birthday.
We then celebrated Christmas with my brother Joey a little early that next week since he was leaving for the Air Force boot camp later in the month. We went hunting but didn’t shoot anything, although I think it rained 3 inches while we were in the deer stand.
Our Christmas this year was wonderful! We went looking at lights with Pat and Odie, celebrated Christmas Eve with Jonda’s family, and had Christmas lunch at Bobby and Vanessa’s. Carissa got many new toys to play with and loves to roam the living room playing with everything. We had Christmas in Ace on New Year’s Eve weekend and it was a ton of fun as usual. We played 42, Catch Phrase, and some more progressive Rummy. Plus we found out that Carissa doesn’t care much for Fireworks.
The big news for me in December is that I gave my notice to quit my job. After 2.5 years with the M.D. Anderson Cord Blood Bank, I have chosen to leave me position to go to work for ICAP Energy, an energy brokerage firm in Sugarland, TX. It is with much hesitation and disappointment that I leave M.D. Anderson as they have been an absolute joy to work for, and the mission that they work for is a wonderful cause. I strongly recommend donating your cord blood if you’re delivering in Houston at one of their participating hospitals (currently The Woman’s Hospital of Texas and Ben Taub General Hospital). You could be saving someone’s life… particularly that of a small child. It’s easy to do… and takes little to no effort on your part. Jonda did it… and I’m proud of her for doing so.
I will miss the Cord Blood Bank Family, and I appreciate the opportunities that Dr. Shpall and her team provided for me during my tenure there. However, I’m looking forward to new opportunities and responsibilities with ICAP where I will start in January.
Another person starting a new job in January is Ryan Wilkerson. Jonda and I went to College Station the weekend of the 16th to watch Ryan and Valerie graduate from Texas A&M University. Ryan will be going back to work with KPMG consulting services doing financial tax work similar to what he has done for them in the past as an intern, except this time… he’ll be making that non-intern salary! Congratulations to these two on their huge accomplishment, and we’re looking forward to that wedding in 2007!
Ok, so there was the update… long winded as usual. And I know you really didn’t want to read all that stuff anyway. If you’re visiting, you really only came for more pictures of Carissa. Well, truth be told, I’ve turned in my laptop, which had my video software on it… and all my pictures now reside upstairs mothballed on a backup disk somewhere. The good news is… I’ve got a lot of pictures to post, I’ve just got to put them together and get them online. Maybe that’ll happen sooner than later… Plus, it’ll give you something to look forward to…
We hope all of our friends had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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