Juddmansee.com

In the figurative sense, it is about time we jotted a post! What’s up with those Juddmansees, anyway? Did they tour the vowel states for Christmas this year or go out for New Year’s? What on earth are they up to these days? Here’s a summary. Ok, maybe it’s got too many details to be a summary. Here are the highlights.

We attended several lovely holiday parties. The San Clementes hosted a fun and friend-packed shindig, with lots of little ones running around, tons of great food, and plenty of opportunities to catch up with many friends. We also attended the AIT holiday party to see my work friends all dressed up and in the holiday spirit, and our friend Carrie’s party in Newburyport with neighbors and friends from church. It was really nice to catch work friends, local friends and college/Otherworld/various networks of friends in three fell swoops.

We didn’t decorate the house. We didn’t send any Christmas cards. We made two kinds of cookies, Church Windows and Sugar Cut-outs (circles, frosted) to eat and to share. Gifts were primarily purchased on a single evening, power shopping excursion. It was a little sparse in terms of holiday preparations. Mostly we sought to catch our flight Dec 22 without forgetting anything, getting sick, or excessively snipping at one another due to stress.

We spent over a week in the vowel states. We got to see lots of family and friends. We survived minor airport delays. We vegged out and took naps whenever we wanted. Rich and Sarah took us to a Pacers game where we got to sit in a luxury box at Conseco. I got to worship in a big congregation with two rows of family and sing carols at full voice among hundreds of others. I got to see old friends and their kids (so many kids!) at my parent’s church. We enjoyed several family dinners with delicious food and lively conversation. We learned to make peanut brittle with Dad. We congratulated Mom on her scheduled retirement January 11. We had dinner with Dawn at a fun Irish pub downtown. Grandma Krueger had a really good few hours while we were visiting on Christmas, for which we were very thankful. We started some new traditions as old ones were let go. We were allowed to watch the Patriots and root for them even though we were in Colts territory. (We just had to cheer quietly.) We got our Steak and Shake fix on Sunday on the way to the airport. We celebrated New Year’s with friends at RedBones. Then it was off to Disney! It gets its own post. There are many many pictures.

So, hopefully, that catches you up on the highlights of the holidays.

Then, going back to the title of this post: in the literal sense, it does seem that life is about time and how our time is spent. As you may have noticed by the decreased frequency of posts, things got a little crazy in December. Time is not a commodity we’ve had to spare. Brian’s been feeling a lot like he did this fall, so he went to the doctor for another round of blood tests, expecting that his Lyme Disease may not be dormant. I’m hoping with the tenuous but successful passing of a key program milestone on a difficult (understatement!) program, things at work will settle down to a dull roar. We’re looking forward to spending more time with you in 2008.