Christmas is officially over; my house is again empty. Mom & Dad, Laura, and Grampa came here to visit this year, and just left this morning. Laura drove up here from Oklahoma through the worst snowstorm ever; she was supposed to drive up here on the 23rd (an all day drive) but only made it as far as Springfield MO the first day, Springfield to Decatur IL the second day, and here (at last) on Christmas afternoon. Most of the drive was through white-out, and she lost count of all the cars in the ditch on the way. The weather channel kept showing a snowfall map, which consistently showed the heaviest snowfall exactly on her path from Oklahoma to Indiana. I drove to Chicago to pick up Mom & Dad & Grampa at the airport and the roads were dry, clear, and as close to empty as I've seen. Since the same drive last summer (see 6-23-02) took almost 4 hours I allowed plently of time, and got there in 2 hours 10 minutes. We had clear weather until Christmas eve, and had maybe 6-8 inches overnight. We had our family present exchange after Laura got here. The 26th Beth and I went up to MI for her family Christmas and back that night. The rest of the week we watched some DVDs (Fellowship of the Ring again), saw The Two Towers, did the Village at Winona Lake, and played the 20th anniversary Trivial Pursuit (really hard!). Yesterday Mom, Laura, Beth & I went to Fort Wayne for Beth's ultrasound, and the doctor reversed his decision (see 11-18-02) after further review. Now, it looks like we're going to have a little girl. We went to register for the baby shower at Babies R Us afterwards. Laura went up to visit a friend in MI yesterday and is headed to West Virginia for an interview after taking everyone back to the airport in Chicago. She'll be back in a couple days. Tonight Beth and I are going to a Komets hockey game in Fort Wayne with friends and will have a party afterwards.

I'm finally on Christmas vacation from work. It's Monday, but the weekend doesn't count since I went in to work for about 4 hours both weekend days to finish some validations on machines that it's hard to get time on during the work week. Yesterday was also the children's Christmas program at church. I help out with directing. This year we did a neat show where some kids acted out the Christmas story in pantomime behind a curtain, so all the audience could see was the shadows, while another person narrated. It went really well except for the 9-foot tall wise man we had because one of the kids forgot to stand close to the curtain. We had movie night early this week, Friday night, so we could watch "LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring" on video before all going out to watch "LOTR: The Two Towers" Saturday afternoon. I was really impressed with 2T; I think it may have been better than Fellowship.

I missed work Monday being sick, sick like I was all last weekend as well. Now on Wednesday I still feel bad enough to call in to work, which I didn't. I went to the doctor today and he gave me some antibiotics. Beth had a raging case of flu last weekend. Must be getting close to Christmas. Last Saturday I had to drive Mom G back to Michigan without Beth. I drove her up to Ann Arbor becasue one of her sisters died last week and the service was Saturday.

Last night was the deacons & elders Christmas party. The church has a catered dinner at one of the banquet halls in town. We all have dinner, then play the white elephant auction. Everyone brings one present and puts it under the tree, then draws a number. When everyone has drawn, we go in order of the drawn numbers, picking a present. You can also steal one that someone else picked, which allows that person to choose another new one, or steal someone else's. the thing is, some of the presents are nice (Beth got a pretty painted blown glass snowman) and some are gags (I got a plastic tray labeled 'mixed nuts' that held a collection of old rusty nuts (as in bolts) and some pictures of Don, who is also kind of a nut). At the end, #1 can exercise an option to trade presents with anyone. Lots of fun.