The conversations went something like this....

"I laughed so hard when I read your comment about JR not EVER getting sleepy. So how's he doing?"

"I saw you were on vacation in California." How was the trip?"

"Did you see what Janice posted yesterday?"

It's the new and improved world of conversation AFTER Facebook.

Last Christmas, the conversation had no jumping off point. We were a room of people with absolutely no clue about each other for the better part of a year. Virtual strangers. There was a warming up period where conversation was awkward and mucky. The niceties of getting started were a necessity. But not this year.

This year we sailed right by those "how are you's" into really great conversation. I think it actually made us all feel closer to each other because we weren't strangers reconnecting after such a long time.

So..kudos to my favorite social networking, family connecting, status conveying, sneak-a-peaking, big news breaking, helpful advice giving, got-more-friends-than-I-can-count website.

Family Pictures...click here.

See the light

As I left work today I passed Mr. White's house. He's a tenant of mine who lives beside my office. His porch is always decked out in wind chimes and plants, but to celebrate the season, he's literally decked the halls with lights. It's a festive display although small. It caught me off guard seeing it today as I left the office as night was falling. It caught me off guard when I realized, Mr. White is blind. Of all my tenants on that street - the blind one decorated for Christmas...with lights...that he'll never see. He told me he has to feel them to make sure they're burning. He has to make sure they are warm. On this same evening, I rode through a neighborhood. A seemingly normal place for people to live. Some houses I passed had decorations and some did not. As I approached the stop light, scrawled on the back of a convenient store were 2 words.."War Zone." As I looked past the decorations, there were groups of people walking the street. Were they kids? Who knows? But this didn't look like a war zone to me. The evening just seemed to be full of contradictions in my mind. A friendly looking neighborhood labeled "war zone," a blind man putting up decorations for all the world to see...except him.

December

December has been a whirlwind. We spent 14 days out west visiting family in Nevada and California. Addison had wonderful time meeting great aunts, uncles and cousins. She rode a cable car in her daddy's lap and saw her first displays of Christmas lights through the open doors of a van with the heat blasting. She's eaten shrimp salad down at Fisherman's Wharf and helped usher in the opening of an 8.5 billion dollar CityCenter in Vegas. She banged her head more times than we could count in her repeated attempts to walk...and run to the point where one bruise was yellowing as another was born. At 13 months, she has seen more of the world than I had at age 21. And she did it all with laughter and smiles and hugs and kisses - the best traveler ever. What a wonderful Christmas present. The actuality of spending 24 hours a day for 14 days with my family and seeing my little girl change by the day from an infant to a toddler. With our crawling days behind us I'm only asking for one more gift this season...running shoes, to keep up with her in the days to come.

Pictures of our TRIP.