Happy New Year

A Happy New Year to all out there who read this blog. Thanks to each of you for your friendship and help in 2013. We all look forward to another great year with great friends and colleagues around the world, we certainly wish for continued good health and happiness. See you all in 2014.

Ending the year with our family picture of 2013, taken in April on Anja's birthday, special only because it shows Connor’s shiner so well. Lets hope there is no more of that next year.

Busy Christmas Day

Posted below are a few pictures from Christmas Day. It was a long and busy day for us, but extremely enjoyable. The kids were up at the crack of dawn and we had three additional families for Christmas dinner. We all had a great day, thanks for coming everybody and for all the presents. Looking forward to seeing you all again soon.

Christmas Eve Excitement

We have just put three extremely excited children to bed. They’re still rustling around, and we’re sure Anja will be for quite some time. They could not contain their excitement tonight; I just wish I could bottle up the memories from nights like these for years to come. The best I could do was catch a few of them placing the cookies and milk for Santa. We started dressing them in identical jim-jams last year and they quite like it, for now anyhow.  We also did our other Christmas Eve tradition this afternoon, movie time with the Polar Express.

We have the veggies and most of the food prepped for tomorrow’s dinner. We’re having 18 plus a baby for dinner, so busy day ahead. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas.

Class Christmas Parties

We are moving closer to Christmas; today was the children’s last day at school, Lynne’s last day at work and Anne’s last day for the year. It’s time for class Christmas parties, today I visited Isabel’s class and Lynne and I were at Connor’s on Wednesday. They are generally a time for a small sing along followed by some snack food or sugar treat. They are a lot of fun packed with incredible memories. For those of you out there with older kids, you all remember these special days!

Appreciating Warm December Weather

It’s an absolutely beautiful day here in West Lafayette, in the 40’s. So nice I sneaked an extra outdoor run in for the year, a scenic 5-mile stroll along Celery Bog. It’s a welcome change from the frigid temperatures earlier in the week. Snow and ice is now rapidly melting and these very picturesque icicles that were a fascination for the kids on Monday are a thing of the past.

Purdue in the Snow

I took a little walking tour of Purdue University this afternoon. It was such a beautiful day and everything looked so pretty cloaked in snow. There is nothing more iconic on campus than the Bell Tower and just as I was heading home, a cloud opened up and illuminated the trees surrounding the tower the mall area on campus!!

Weekend All Snuggled Up!

It is very white here in WL, very good for getting us all in the Christmas spirit. We had a very relaxing weekend, with our neighborhood party on Saturday night at the Kelly, and lots of time in the snow. There was baking, a movie, arts and crafts and lots of reading of course. We did a lot of snuggling on couches, our favorite holiday activity. I tried to capture some of it on camera. Wish you all a great final workweek before the holiday!

Snowy Saturday Morning

A beautiful snowy white day here in Indiana, perfect if you had planned a lazy Saturday morning like we had. Playing in the snow, snowmen, hot chocolate, tears after getting all wet and cold, what more could anybody ask for on a December Saturday morning. And the snow is still coming down. The tears were Isabel’s, compare the photos I took of her below and after she decided her hands were cold!!

New Material

These arrived today! It’s my course material for the next quarter at Booth. Since I started the MBA program, the curriculum has been relentless; each quarter has always overlapped with the previous, assignments always due on the first day of each new course. This picture is very very special though,….It is the last package I will ever receive, when I get through the material in this picture, I’ll be done with this MBA, both practically and figuratively!! Makes me want to break into the material straight away….but I think I’m going to wait a few weeks :)