Snowy Obama Day!

So I think a lot of Americans, ourselves included will always remember January 20, 2009 as a monumental day in history. The day that Barack Obama became the first African-American President. A President that has again instilled a grassroots sense on pride, hope and strength in what we can do as a nation. Despite some of the critics, I don't think anyone is under the impression that anything in this country can be changed overnight and that the economy is going to bounce back quickly. But at least some of us can now have a sense of hope in a brighter future.

This historic day was marked here in Raleigh with a huge snow storm (well huge for us ;) We got about 6 inches of snow! I haven't seen that much snow in Raleigh for at least 4 years. Of course everything shuts downs here with that amount of snow. We tried to take Arden out in the snow, but she wasn't a big fan, so we went for a short walk. It was great to have Dave home and to be able to sit an watch the inauguration coverage. I can't ever remember watching any, and especially not a whole days worth of inauguration coverage! It was fun, emotional and inspiring all at the same time. And I never thought I would say anything like that about politics!

New Years!

For New Year's Eve we spent it with our friends, Jenn & Brian and their son, Oscar. Well sort of. We went downtown Raleigh for the early kid-friendly acorn drop at 7pm. It was freezing so we really had to bundle up, but I'm a big fan of doing New Year's at 7 pm. Raleigh is the "City of Oaks" hence the acorn, in leiu of the times sqaure ball. Then Dave and I headed home, watched some TV and called it a night at 10 pm. I was totally fine with that- I must be getting old.

2009 I'm sure will be an interesting year as they all seem to be turning out to be for the Drenzek family lately. I'm not affirming any specific resolutions, I feel you should be self- reflective throughout the year, not just with the mark of the beginning or end of the calendar. I do plan to hit the gym quite a bit more- considering going at all is more for me period. But considering I've got a free membership to the brand new Y downtown because I'm teaching there now come January, why not?

Christmas 2008

So for the third time in less then 2 months we made the 5+ hour road trip up to Maryland for Christmas. But this time we got to meet our new niece/cousin- Kelsey! Oh yea and see the rest of the family- lol!

The drive is made a lot easier in the past couple years by listening to the Janet Evanovich's bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum series. Dave and I are hooked and we only listen to them in the car on road trips. It makes the drive go by so much quicker.

Arden was a huge fan of her new cousin Kelsey. She kept saying "bay-bee" and pointing to Kelsey and giving her kisses all weekend. It was cute.

We got up to Annapolis on Christmas Eve with just enough time to relax a bit and have some dinner. My parents were very generous and put us up in their Courtyard Marriott with a suite with an adjoining room to their room which was quite nice to have our room separate from our baby that goes to bed at 8 pm. Thanks Mom & Dad! Christmas morning we woke up and made the drive back over to Brian & Amy's. We quickly realized that the majority of the gifts under the tree were either for Kelsey or Arden- the two that couldn't really open their own gifts. And Arden wanted to play with everything after she opened it so we knew gifts with small children was going to take awhile! Arden got lots of new fun things but I think got a bit overloaded towards the end, so I stashed some gifts to be "new" again in a couple weeks. Stretch it out a bit. She did get a new tricycle from her Noani & Poppi which she thought was lots of fun! And she got a very Elmo filled Christmas with slippers, two Elmos, multiple Elmo books, and even a DVD. She got her first baby doll which she now likes to tote around. And the bag of rocks and the computer keyboard that Dave & I got her were a hit too! It's so much fun to watch Christmas through the eyes of a child and I have a feeling this is just the beginning. The day after Christmas we drove 2 hours down to Ocean City to see my Dad's side of the family, including my grandmother. It was really special for me for her to meet Arden, since I never got to meet my Great- Grandparents. And I haven't seen my cousin, Seth or Uncle Don in awhile so it was nice to visit with everyone in the larger extended family. Arden did great sleeping on the way down, but not sleeping on the way back. She was a real trooper to the crazy holiday schedule that she was on.

Then on Saturday Dave, Mom, Dad, Arden and I took the Metro down to DC and went to the National Museum of Natural History. Arden's first time on public transportation! She got a kick out of the Metro. The museum was a bit crowded but that was expected and constant. She walked around and saw big dinosaur bones, insects, and sea creatures. Then she crashed out in her stroller while we had lunch at the old post office.

Sunday was spent driving home which thank goodness was rather uneventful. It was a busy but fun filled family filled holiday!