For anyone that’s read my blog or who knows me, it’s obvious that my kids are everything to me.  So much so, that my wife and I rarely get time for ourselves.  I think since the first of my two daughters were born 7 1/2 years ago, I think we’ve both spent a night away from home ONCE for a wedding that we attended.  Sometimes I’ve had to travel for business with a night or two away, my wife even less.  Well, my wife made plans for a night in a hotel she’s been eyeing in Santa Barbara (my old college stopping grounds).  Thanks to Grandpa and Aunt, the girls would be well taken care of and we could enjoy some “silence”.  Leaving at noon on Saturday, and back in the car at 2pm on Sunday, didn’t give us a lot of time, but the total round trip of 700 miles was certainly the most peaceful car ride we’ve had in some time.  Lots of uninterrupted conversation.  We got to enjoy a nice hotel, walk down to the beach, have a nice dinner, catch a movie (and not the Alvin and the Chimpmunks variety), and my wife even got a massage in the morning. . . wow.  A little time on Sunday to walk around State Street and then back home to bathe the kids and get ready for school/work the next day.  I am so grateful to my wife for being so incredibly dedicated to our children, but I think having some time for her (and us) makes doing all she does a little more do-able.  Thanks Amy for a nice day.

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My youngest has had asthma for years now. It’s such a horrible thing to watch when she has a bout with it. It’s also something that’s so hard to control. You have to stay ahead of it. Well, with winter, comes cold, and with that comes more likeliness of symptoms. We’ve had our share of emergency room visits via ambulance (not sure how I wasn’t medicated to get through that!). Well, after Christmas, and all the excitement, she started having trouble. Then it starts. . . breathing treatments every 4 hours. You have to check her blood oxygenation level to make sure she’s getting enough air. She’s amazing. We will wake her up at 3am or 4am, (my wife way more than my hibernating body) and she pops out of bed with a smile on her face, stumbles out to the living room, lays on the couch, puts the mask on, and sleeps for 20 minutes while the nebulizer helps open up her lungs. I don’t know how she (or my wife) do it.   After the treatmen, she’ll be woken up again, back to her room, climb the ladder back to her bed, smiles, kisses, and then back to sleep.  I’ll try and stay up for a 2am treatment, because once I’m asleep, it’s nearly impossible to wake me up. Well, her numbers are good today, and she seems not to be struggling (we have a number scale for her to gauge how she feels, and she’s giving me the thumbs up as well). I’m not always a big believer in things I can’t see, but I’ll knock on wood or pray to whomever if it will help keep her breathing free and easy.

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We are lucky to have a nice house with a large front yard.  The “negative” about it is that we are in a prominent location in our neighborhood , so there are expectations for the holiday decorations from the  ”un-appointed neighborhood judging committee”.  My wife is the true spirit of Christmas in our family, and she puts her sweat and muscle into it,  braving the freezing cold, to decorate our big tree in the front of our house.  She kept wanting my help, but I would reach for the camera instead because there were just so many photographs to get.   Needless today, without her , our tree would be quite bare, and we would be the outcasts of the region.

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So this is a shot of my oldest a few years ago at Christmas time.

It’s one of my favorites.  We decorate our tree out front with lights and giant silver balls. (we’ve now added giant lit up stars as well).

But her look of wonder was so precious, I couldn’t help but grab my camera and take a few shots.  Once she saw me shooting her, she got a bit shy and left the area.  It’s those fleeting moments that are so important.  Now, as she runs out the front door, she may take a glance at the lit up tree, but now it’s just “the lit up tree”.  The older I get, the more I tend to focus on how fast life moves.

My ‘little one’ (13 months younger) still has a little of the wide-eyed-ness going for her, but she’s forced a bit, being so close in age to her ‘big’ sister, to grow up faster than normal.  We haven’t gotten all the lights up yet (with only 12 days left until Christmas), but hopefully I’ll be able to get some shots that also become a favorite.