It’s been awhile. So the quick rundown on what we’ve been up to since the last time we updated this is going to be a bit long…
Nick headed down to Austin for the Supercomputing conference towards the end of last month. I’m told that Austin is as weird as it’s been kept, and that it would be a cool place to live.
While Nick was down in TX, I was finishing up the last parts of the home improvment fall project – mainly repainting our bedroom and getting the backsplash up in the kitchen.
We headed back to Rochester for Thanksgiving (that was an earlier post), and then came back to MD with a full week including my company holiday party and our annual holiday party back to back. All of the holiday baking was put to work in the form of take out boxes for everyone to take home.
We splurged a bit on a pre-Christmas present to ourselves – a nice Nikon digital camera and an extra zoom lens. We headed down into the DC on a lovely brisk Winter day to play tourist with the new camera.
December was flying by, and (amazingly) I was able to hold out until we had ‘our’ Maryland Christmas to give out presents to Nick, Cashew or Pinot. Good times were had by all, Christmas at home. 
Right after that, December 19th rolled around and – just in time for the biggest snow storm of the year to hit the east coast – it was time for us to drive to Rochester. (Nick was amazing through non-stellar driving conditions the entire route.) We picked up a real tree and decorated it with my mom, and had a lot of fun watching Pinot romp around in (her first?) big snow experience. Cashew wasn’t so happy to be away from home, but we had a wonderful few relaxing days with my mom in the ROC. 
The turntable that we got for my mom was the awesome (loved listening to some old 45s), a few classic holiday flicks, and my mom did a great job of shopping this year (too much!)
After a few relaxing days in ROC, we drove to Buffalo to fly out to Nebraska. A bit of snow on the way there, we thought we were going to have to shovel ourselves out on the way back. The Christmas trip to NE was great as always, with the fun amplified by 2 youngun’s under 2 years old, and everyone’s willingness to let me play with all of the new camera settings. 
And alas – after heading back to Buffalo (60 degree weather no less), driving back to Rochester, sleeping a bit, having lunch with my mom and then driving back to MD, we’re back home, momentarily at least. Excited to see my neice Vanessa tonight (who is down visiting Melanie for the new year). And soon…. very very soon… our new year trip awaits 
