Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I'm taking a few days to spend at home for the holidays. I had such a wonderful autumn, first doing an incredible field season in South Africa with my good friends, Dennis and Gigi Laidler. Two more wonderful international trips (Australia and China) followed soon thereafter.

The travel was exciting, productive, and fun, but it left me so far behind on everything else in my life. I have mostly caught up at work (gearing up to teach a double load in spring semester to make up for the time off to do my field season), but I still have a lot to do at home to make up for two months of travel. So, I'm very much looking forward to being home this week, spending time with family, my dogs, and, I hope, some quality time in my workshop. I want to do some carving and turning again - this will be my best chance to make some art to end 2013 with a smile on my face. I'm ready for my self-imposed wood sabbatical to end...

I do hope that 2014 brings all of you great joy and prosperity. Best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Christmas 2007

Christmas morning started a bit on the late side for the Wolfe Pack. Steve and I played music at St. Alban's Christmas eve service. We didn't get home until after 1 a.m., and so we were really glad when we were the first to wake up at about 8 a.m., as compared to our usual pre-dawn awakening on previous Christmas mornings.




Richard camped out on the couch to be ready for all the action. (Actually, he likes sleeping on the couch. . .)









Meghan came downstairs to check out her Christmas stocking.







One of Meghan's gifts was my old cell phone. She lost her cell phone about a month ago and we weren't going to replace it until her contract was up next summer. However, I found my old phone and had it converted to her number. I put the most obnoxious ring tone on it that I could find and then rang it up on Christmas morning. Meghan went to find out what that noise was and found a package with her name on.








She figured it out pretty quickly.















Now, that's a Christmas smile if I ever saw one. She's holding her other favorite present - a gift certificate to her favorite clothes store.









Richard got one of his Christmas wishes, too - a "Dad" hat. Steve used to have a hat similar to this when he served in the Air Force. Richard wanted something to keep his head and ears warm in our cold winter.








Michael gave Steve a "useful pot" ala Winnie the Pooh,









and Meghan a computer game for virtual puppies.












"Doh!"











Michael's wondering what that gadget is that has Steve's name on it.











By his smile, I think he figured out what was in the box.










He got another of my hand-me-downs; my old laptop, refurbished with a 100 GB hard drive.

"Bet you wished this was yours. . ."









Richard was happy with his box, though.











He's a huge Star Wars fan and he received the complete X-wing series,











and a new blanket.












Emma and Darwin both got a lot of dog toys. I'll post pics on Emma's blog.











Michael either looks like Genghis Khan . . .

















or a hairy bimbo in this hat.











Ok, that's better. Back to some scholarly activity now.









A good part of the day was spent in getting Michael's new 'puter set up with all the latest versions of software. That's Steve's job (as opposed to Steve Jobs).






I spent much of the day preparing our dinner. It was a late one since I didn't have time to bake my pies on Christmas eve. I always make an apple and a blueberry pie for Christmas dinner. These are about to go into the oven. (They were delicious!)




Emma spent the rest of the day playing* with her new toys and hiding them under the Christmas tree.




*playing = destroying.


Merry Christmas from the Wolfe Pack.