Goodnight Florida, and Merry Christmas etc...

Family photo at the bottom of America...our first Christmas photo, three days early.

We're heading home to snow. I must admit, I haven't seen snow in awhile...sure, a few flurries that dissipated before they even fell on the ground, just tiny white flecks floating through the air...but I haven't seen actual snow on the ground in approximately nine months. In between snow flakes there has been Hawaiian sand sneaking up between toes, there has been Manhattan pavement stirring aches and gentle Central Park pains, there has been twirling kitchen dances with my wife and daughter, and the smell of backyard beach bonfire on our clothes. There were ballparks and inflatable pools...autumn leaves and Chris Isaak music floating up hillsides in the soft, warm Michigan rain. A lot has happened since I last saw snow. Now it's nearly Christmas and I haven't seen my family or friends in a long time, it'll be good to come home to snow.

Zoey is eleven months old in just 4 days...eleven months...and it slipped by so fast that I hardly had time to catch my breath. We've packed a lot into eleven months, and with any luck we'll stuff even more into the next eleven or twelve. This is exactly how I want to be living...off adventuring with these two girls as often as I can. We've talked about moving, and maybe someday we will...maybe someday we'll have to. That would be the added weight that tilts us out of balance, but for right now we like what we've got. Right now I get New York and San Clemente, Honolulu and Lima, Peru...right now I get to climb aboard airplanes with my wife and my daughter and land in far away places much more often than most people I know. Is it better in Vancouver, or Eugene, or San Francisco? Maybe...probably...but that's not where I live right now and I've grown awfully tired of living in the future.

Right now I live in a ridiculously cheap place with an equally ridiculous view, and as long as we have that one little cravat then we're not changing our address or postal code without considerable thought. We have the things that we need, and the money to buy the things that we want. We have loving parents close by, and that proximity and our new maturity helps us access their guidance and support in any decision we make. Life is good at the end of this particular computer monitor.

So we're coming home to snow with smiles on our tanned little faces, and we're going to eat, drink, and be merry. We'll figure out 2010 when it gets here.