Oof!

Yipes, its been a while.

I've just had no motivation to blog as of late. Hopefully I'll find it again. Regardless, blind guilt obligates me to update everyone with a few pics, etc.

We spent a relaxing, albeit active, 18 days home over Christmas. It feels like a lifetime ago already, but it was so incredibly good just to be around family. With Christmas and birthday number 2 coming so close together, Ella both discovered and mastered the art of gift opening in a few short weeks.

And in case any of you were wondering, our baby-doll to Ella ratio increased over Christmas by a factor of about 11.

I celebrated the culmination of a year of buying my wife basically nothing (I'll do better with the internet shopping this year sweetheart, I swear) with the ceremonial buying of myself a embarrassingly expensive camera (which, interestingly, I bought on the internet). I mostly feel like a monkey pounding on a keyboard when I use it, but hey, I'll learn. In any event, every once in a while a nice picture seems to come out, despite its user. I might follow the lead of a few other blogs and post random cool shots that bubble up.

We were only back in Naples for a week before I had to be in Germany for training for another week. Mel and EB tagged along and we made a long weekend of it by traveling through Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and even the Netherlands again on the drive back to the airport. We visited Heidelberg a couple of days and stayed in Luxembourg, Brussels, and Brugge overnight. There was much waffle and chocolate eatage. And there was much fastage drivage on the German highwayage in our sporty little new VW Golf (which had less than 300km on it prior to our rental). Weather was kinda crummy, but that only made us more resolute in our decision to return - especially to Brugge, which might be the best all around European city we've visited as of yet.

We also drove through the area of the Battle of the Bulge, which was a personal highlight. As you'd expect, the monuments weren't nearly as rewarding as experiencing the little roads, woods, and hills where the real fighting occurred.

Hope everyone enjoys the pics, and I'll try to do better with the posting. I'm thinking the next few entries might be in the form of a few lists, inspiration courtesy Those Other Chockleys. Oh, and maybe they'll be shorter, based on some ridicule I received of late...but starting next time...

-pac