It's been a LONG time!

Hey everyone!
We are finally back in Chicago and recovering from the holidays. Pretty crazy since it is the middle of January! We had a great holiday season. Joel preached at both of our Christmas Eve services at church, and I had to work on Christmas Eve. Joel picked me up early after work and then we went to Goshen, IN to see his family. We had little sleep that day, but enjoyed spending time with 3 out of our 5 nieces. We played games together, went to see Chronicles of Narnia, and ate our traditional SEAFOOD Christmas dinner. It was fabulous! We spent a few days in Goshen and then went to Hartford City to see my family. We had a great time with them as well. My brother, sister-in-law and nephew came over for a late Christmas. It was great to spend time with them all. My dad and mom recently purchased a convenience store in Hartford City, so we spent time there helping as we could and 'testing' all the goodies my dad has brought in to sell. I defintly don't mind testing out pecan and cinnamon rolls, biscuits and gravy, etc...
Joel and I had our Christmas with the puppies a couple days before Christmas. It was a fun time. It was nice to just be able to spend a couple days together and relax.
I didn't have to work on New Year's, but I made a BIG dinner for us and then I fell asleep and woke up 5 minutes before midnight! Pretty pathetic huh? We had intentions of going downtown Chicago to spend New Year's, but that obviously didn't happen. Are we getting old or what?
Here are a few pictures from our Christmas. I will post more soon. We just got back from skiing in Colorado. When I download all the pictures, I will post some of them as well.
Hope everyone is getting back in the swing of things after the holidays. Hope to hear from you soon. Happy 2006!