Christmas, 2010

It has been a very long time since I have written anything here. Finding any time to sit down and spend any uninterrupted time at my desk or the kitchen table has become more and more difficult as my daughter Rachel had become increasingly mobile. About the time she turned a year old Rachel decided that walking was really the best way to locomote. Since then, all bets have been off. In fact, as I sit in the kitchen of my new house right now, Rachel has just pulled a chair out from the table and climbed into it where she is reclining comfortably with a bottle of water. Food and drink will keep her occupied, and stationary, but only for a short time. The rest of the time she spends on the go. She occasionally plays with her many toys. More than likely, however, she'll be pulling a dog tail, unpacking cabinets and drawers, throwing random objects or getting into some other mischief. As far as Rachel is concerned, everything is fair game.

I'm not complaining, though. I find Rachel endlessly entertaining. She is very funny. In fact I think she has the best sense of humor of anybody I know. Not bad for somebody with vocabulary of a dozen or so words. She is to the point where she seems to be regularly learning new words and generally seems to understand their meaning. For months she has been saying "uh-oh" whenever she drops something. The other day she pulled over a floor lamp in the living room. The glass globe shattered on the floor with a huge crash. Bree, my dad and I all instantly rushed to see that she was alright. Rachel just stood there with a puzzled look and said "uh-oh". A tad understated, but really quite appropriate.

But it is Christmastime. My mom and dad flew to Denver from Milwaukee on December 17th and left to go back this afternoon. It was a special treat to be able to have them here at Christmas as well as for my 40th birthday. That sounds awful, doesn't it? 40! The best thing about turning 40 is that it means that I didn't die while in my thirties. Time is going so fast. I wish I could slow it down sometimes. I know that won't happen, so I guess the best I can do is to try not to have too many regrets going forward.

On the 23rd Bree, Rachel, Dad and I drove to Carbondale (between Glenwood Springs and Aspen) where we spent two nights with my uncle Al, aunt Peg, cousin Jennie and her fiance Allen. Justin and my mom joined us later in the day. My uncle and aunt have a great new house in a golf course community which is where they have chosen to spend their retirement. On Chistmas Eve Bree and I were able to get away for the afternoon to spend some time in Aspen, which is about 30 miles down the Roaring Fork Valley from their house. It's not too often that we have the chance to get away without Rach these days so we enjoyed the few hours of freedom to hobnob with all of the high-falutin snobs. We didn't realize Charlie Sheen was in town, otherwise would have gotten together for a few drinks, I'm sure.

My cousin Jennie has spent many years in the Airforce flying around the world in C130s but next summer she will be getting married. As far as I can tell, she seems to be marrying a pretty good guy. Allen is from Cork, Ireland and now works at Microsoft. He was good enough to have a bottle of Bushmills waiting for us when we got there.

Christmas day, we all drove over Tennesee Pass to Debbie and Jerry's place on a windy mountainside just north of Buena Vista. Snow had been drifting over the winding dirt road leading to their house for the past couple of days, so we weren't sure if we'd make it. Jerry runs the music program at the Catholic church in BV and they all perform but this year they were unable to make it to mass on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning because of all the snow that had drifted over the road on the way in. The stretch where most of the snow collects is called The Hackendorf. I'm not sure how it got that name, but by the end of the weekend Bree, my Dad and I all thought it quite funny to constantly hear about the horrors of navigating the dreaded Hackendorf. It got to be a bit of a joke. The wind was no joke though. It was blowing off of Mt Columbia to the west at a murderous rate. They had hired a plow to come through just before we arrived so we didn't have any problem making it in. The next morning a man had to come in with a front end loader because the plow couldn't make it through, so much snow had drifted in.

I had been looking forward to walking around their land and up into the forest on the mountainside butthe cold and the gale force winds made that idea seem much less agreeable. So we all stayed inside for the rest of the day. Jerry had set out a wide variety of booze, and after the snowy drive in, I was happy to help myself. They had picked up a bottle of Jamison the day before when they thought that they might have to spend the night in town. Over the course of the evening I made a big dent in the bottle.

The Hogans are a musical family so later in the evening they performed some Christmas carols for us. Debbie singing and on the piano, James playing the flute. Debbie made a ham recipe out of the Julia Child cookbook that was phenomenal. Everybody there seemed to have a pleasant night. It's not too often that I get my whole family together like this anymore. I try to enjoy it while it lasts.

I got a bit of a walk in the next morning as I scoped out the road out. The wind was still raging but I thought we'd have smooth sailing. Until I reached the dreaded Hackendorf, that is. It became clear that we'd have a tough time getting through this quarter mile stretch, even with our four wheel drive vehicles. That's when they called in the front end loader.

Thanks everybody for a great Christmas.