Rob's family

I signed up to read to Gretchen's class in early December.  Over the last four years, I'm pretty sure I've read every year to either Melinda's or Gretchen's classses around Christmas time.  I always read "the Grinch."  Wednesday night while I was travelling, Tracey fielded a panicked call from another reader in Gretchen class that she had read my book.  Thursday night when I returned I set to finding something I could read. I happened across the original text from "The Gift of the Magi" (1906).  Great story, but it had some hard words (I needed to look them up).  So I downloaded a copy and put in translations. I discovered this morning as I practiced that I couldn't read the story out loud without tearing up.  Wonderful irony.  Happy and sad.  Great story.  After half a dozen readings I felt like I could do it without losing it. When I sat down, to read, I knew right away that I was wrong - no way was I finishing that story without cryi

"I love the smell of a real Christmas tree" I thought to myself a couple weeks back.  I mentioned it to Tracey while she was making dressing for the Thanksgiving bird.  No doubt, she had flash backs to our first couple years of marriage where (without fail) we drove out to a Christmas tree lot on the coldest night of the year and bought a Scotch Pine already dry and losing its needles. "No, no."  I assured her, "We'll cut down our own.  It'll be romantic and Norman Rockwell-esque." I wrote down the directions before we left the house, "Head out to our Apple Orchard, turn right at the cow pasture."  We of course got lost.  Not too bad though, we found the farm while the sun was still high in the sky. We got a quick run down on the tree types and how the farm worked (cut down,drag out) and in we went.  The trees started immediately.  The weather was brisk but sunny.  Really, I'd say it was about ideal.  We had a dusting of snow Frida