Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday break! Jarom and Alixa had an eventful one and are happy to be back home but sad to have to go back to things like school and work. They spent their vacation in Cleveland visiting the Hegewalds (Alixa's family). Unfortunately, they almost didn't make it. They had a connecting flight in Chicago, where about 200 flights got cancelled, including theirs. They waited about 12 hours, trying to get on a flight standby, along with 147 other people. When they had given up all hope, they at last were able to board a flight at 1:00 AM, arriving in Cleveland at 2:30. They arrived, only to see Jarom's luggage waiting for him and Lixi's nowhere to be found. Getting her suitcase took another two days. Not the best start to a Christmas vacation. The fun with airlines only continued from there. On the 26th, they were planning to fly out to Delaware to see Jarom's sister get married. On their way to the airport at 1:30 in the afternoon Jarom got a call telling him that his flight had been cancelled and they had been rebooked for Friday, December 28th. The wedding was on the 27th, so that was not really a good solution. They went to the airport and managed to get a flight out of Cleveland later that day. Big surprise, upon arriving at the airport at 7:30 they were told that yet another flight had been cancelled. And despite the clear weather in both Cleveland and Philadelphia, there was not an available seat on any flight going there until the afternoon of the next day, which was too late to see the wedding. So they decided to stay and get a refund for the ticket. They were both very sad to miss the partying and wish they could have seen all of the people there. But they had some unused bad karma that had to get out before the new year, and this was the best way that the universe knew how to spend it.

For Christmas Jarom got a bunch of new clothes (T-shirts, socks, belts, a few new dress shirts), a new power drill and saws-all, a few books, a pair of shoes, and some new speakers. Lixi got a boatload of apparel. On Christmas Day Lixi got to have the "greatest experience of her life". Thanks to her daddy's sweet job they got to see the Cavs play the Miami Heat from the luxury box that his company has. The Cavs won, but getting to watch the game from pretty close up while enjoying all manner of goodies really made it fun. Turns out that Shaq is HUGE when you see him in person instead of on a TV.

I enjoyed my time to myself while they were gone, but it is nice to have them back around the house. We are all looking forward to a wonderful year. It could be a big one. Maybe a kid, hopefully some college graduations, maybe grad school or a job, who knows?