1st Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Years

This year is Robin and I’s first Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years together as a married couple. We visited with my side of the family (Wintle) on Thanksgiving. This year a lot of the family came, the head count was 36 and that does not include everyone. Every year we meet at my grandparent’s house in Dexter, talk, eat and then make crafts; however the past two years I have not stayed for the crafts as I now have an additional stop to make, Robin’s parent’s. I invited Dad to Thanksgiving dinner, he came and it was good to have him there as we had not eaten Thanksgiving together for a few years. Shortly after eating we drove two hours south west to the coast where we ate with Robin’s family at her brother’s new house. We had a good time socializing and playing Scatagories.

A lot has been going on for Robin and I, we are searching for a house and adjusting to married life-which is great by the way! We are starting to figure out what our spending habits are as a couple for groceries, gas, etc. We had to de-claw her cat because she kept scratching my leather furniture; I did not want to go to that extreme but after multiple failed attempts to curb this habit it was the only option. The first few days were hard on Marbles; she kept licking her paws which the Vet said not to allow so Robin created a home-made lamp shade and wrapped her paws with gauze. After about four weeks Marbles is doing much better; she is back to her peppy, chatty self.

I love taking photographs of wildlife as well as landscapes that are full of color, I normally do not take many photos during the winter due to the temperature and lack of colors, however this year I am going to attempt to take some photos of the snow- most of the time when the scenery is pretty is when I am on my way to work and don’t have much time to stop. I have had the chance to photograph a beautiful cold morning outside of our apartment, a very cold stream, a couple of Bald Eagles, an icey river and a -21° steamy sunrise.

Mom was scheduled to fly up the Wednesday before Christmas week but was delayed a day due to snow storms. She stayed with us for a few days and also stayed with her parent’s for a few days. We shopped for present’s one day and spent most of our time around the apartment due to the weather we had during Christmas week. The first evening mom was here we had a mini-blizzard; snow started falling heavily early evening and fell throughout the night; before we went to bed, I decided to take a few photos of the snow storm outside; to my surprise portions of my car was covered in 4′ snow. The next morning the snow had subsided and everything was calm, peaceful; you could hear the birds flapping and chirping in the cool silence. I decided to take a few more photos in-between shoveling our cars out.

Robin and I are looking for a good deal on Snow Shoes in hopes that we can enjoy the winter wonderland together this winter and hopefully be able to spot some wildlife. We had a very good holiday season this year, visiting with family, celebrating Christ’s birth and opening wonderful gifts with each other. One of Robin’s gifts was a nice Canon PowerShot SX10 IS, she has been learning how to use the shutter speed, aperture, and exposure properly and has been taking some really good photos lately too.

My New Years Resolution is to not be as judgmental with people, that is one of my downfalls that I want to change. Robin is one of my inspirations with this, she is so caring for other people which is something I’m very attracted to. My other inspiration is from Brandon Heath’s song, “Give me Your eyes“. I’m reading through the Gospel Books right now, which tells about Christ’s ministry which is a major source of inspiration.