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.

Thanksgiving for 2007 was a little different for me for a few different reasons; Mom and Jack did not visit as they are saving money to come up this year at Christmas, Robin and I had dinner at my Grandparents in Dexter along with roughly 20 other family members and then later in the evening Robin and I headed to the coast where her parent’s live.

The weather for Thanksgiving day was fairly cool, in the 40’s with clear skies. Robin said that my families Thanksgiving dinner had a lot of people; I’ve never thought of that before as I’ve always had large family gatherings and that’s what’s generally depicted on TV. After eating dinner we headed back to my apartment and then shortly after left for Prospect Harbor to visit with Robin’s parents.

On Saturday Robin and I went in to the hospital to paint our window that she had picked for the annual Christmas window painting contest; we spent a couple of hours painting it and I think ours is the best out of all of them- at least message-wise.

This year for Christmas I flew to Virginia to stay with Jack and my mother for the week to celebrate Christmas and to spend some time with them during the week. I usually pick different flight routes every time to experience new terminals; this time around I flew into Logan Airport in Boston, MA. The one thing that I enjoyed most about the airport is that there was always a constant breath of fresh Atlantic Ocean water.

I waited roughly an hour in the Logan terminal I was on my way to Raleigh, NC which was another new airport to me. I’m always surprised at how nice everything looks in North Carolina; buildings, roads, landscape, etc. Jack and mom greeted me in airport and we started off towards Bedford, on the way we stopped at Hardees, my first time as Maine does not have a Hardees. I ordered a Jalapeno Angus burger which was very good, much different than the other fast-food chains.

Sunday, Christmas Eve mom and I went to Thomas Road Baptist Church where Dr. Jerry Falwell preaches. The church was newly built last July and holds 5,000 people along with many other rooms, stores, etc; the quire is 3x larger than my church I attend! When we arrived Sunday School had already started which was lead by Elmer Towns, you can listen to his class online as well if you’d like at ElmerTowns.com. Near to end of class the stadium began to fill towards 4,000 people which I’m told is lower than any other week. I really enjoyed the service; including listening to what Jerry had to talk about. After Church we made plans to see “The Nativity Story“, and then head to TRBC for the evening service.

On Monday, Christmas day we exchanged gifts with each other. As always, mom always exceeds any expectations one would have- she always gives gifts that are needed. After the gifts had been opened we took plenty of time playing with our new toys, taking down the tree and fellowshipping. Later mom treated Jack and I to dinner at Peaks of Otter restaurant that sits near the base of the mountain. Afterwards we took different route home, one that brought us winding up and down a mountain littered with mansions.

On Tuesday we braved the Roanoke Valley View mall where thousands of people were exchanging gifts or spending their Christmas money. Despite the advertisement claims on TV there were very few sales and even less that actually interested me. Mom and I cleaned up the yard, took down the Christmas decorations and put up a new bird feeder, I was able to capture this curious Tufted Titmouse.

Mill Mountain Zoo which is located on Mill Mountain in Roanoke was open for the afternoon so we set sail and browsed throughout the zoo looking and taking photos of the animals. They had two rare Snow Leopards which was a treat as I am interested in large predator cats. I met a very friendly Llama that enjoyed having her photo taken with passing visitors. Afterwards we ate at the local Red Robin Gourmet burg pub; the selection of burgers was very impressive.

A local cinema in Lynchburg was playing “Open Season”, so mom and I attended on Thursday. The movie was alright, I didn’t like the fact that they were portraying hunters as people who are hicks, bad and have no heart. On the way home to Bedford, a beautiful sunset was on display. The entire sky was painted with glowing orange-red gradient and the gray clouds looked as if they were on fire.

Thanksgiving has come and gone for the year 2006, I always enjoy this holiday not only how it was derived but actually being able to sit down and have a meal with the whole family. I have a fairly large family thanks to my mother’s parents who had six children, some of children and grandchildren.

After saying that they were staying home for Thanksgiving this year, Jack and mom decided to drive up and stay 3 days at my apartment- they slept on a blowup bed in my second bedroom.

Thanksgiving dinner was good; we had around 25 or so people there that day. I always enjoy listening to the family talk about what has been going on in their lives this past year. One of our traditions is to look through my grandparent’s myriad of photo albums ranging from the 1940s to present day. I would love to be able to scan all of the photos and create a digital album.