Christmas 2008 and Environmentalism

Dear Friends and Family,

We sincerely hope you enjoyed your holiday with those you love. We certainly did! It was nice to see my brother (who now lives in Portland, OR). I guess absence DOES makes the heart grow fonder after all! ; -) Just kidding Chris! We miss you all the time and I'm so glad you got to spend time with the little ones. It really means the world to us.

The kids really make Christmas magical. We thoroughly enjoyed checking out the neighborhood lights, making cookies for Santa, wrapping presents, writing the letter to Santa, putting out Reindeer carrots (beautiful organic ones, might I add), but most of all, the excitement of lots of family dinners and visits with loved ones.

This is Andrew as he discoved what Santa left for him under our tree. He asked for a scooter with a helmet, but Santa brought a Big Wheel too! I'm so glad that Santa understands that we needed fun things for Andrew to play with outside as we are working on his coordination skills!

I have a rule with the kids that they can't enjoy any sweet stuff until after their first birthday (I know! I'm sooo mean!) but Kate's 1st birthday is right around the corner and Grandma talked me into letting Kate have her first taste of a candy cane (strawberry flavored.) She's totally glad she has Grandma in her corner! I think she mostly enjoyed the fact that she never had to put it down! The candy cane was super sticky and just stuck to her little hands!

Grandma helped her open the goodies that Santa left in her stocking. She loves the baby "puffy" snacks and Cheerios of course!

Ok, so I guess a blog is really supposed to be some ramblings or journaling of important things and not really a digital scrapbook of your kids, so here goes a little environmental thread. I recently started reading a book Allie gave me by Thomas Friedman, "Hot, Flat and Crowded." Only a short ways into it, but already, I'm reminded of why I became a Wildlife Biologist in the first place. Memories of the crazy Biosphere II Center and my days as a docent at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum came flooding back to me. I really recommend you pick up this book and take a look at some of his ideas. Even if you don't agree, I would totally welcome the discussion! The premise of the book basically argues that we need a "Green Revolution" to save our country. I know this immediately sends up flags for a lot of you out there, and it did me too at first, but he goes on to thoroughly explain how we need to solve our energy crisis and work toward this goal as a unified country if we want to save our inovation, reputation, economy and essentially adapt to the future. If we don't take the lead on this as a country, Friedman argues we will be the "losers" and other countries who can find answers to our energy crisis will take the lead in the global market place. We know our earth is getting hotter and we know we are addicted to foreign, non-renewable fossil fuels and we know we need to make some major changes to protect our way of life. When I say protect our way of life, I mean that there is a huge transfer of wealth happening between contries like ours who are dependant on these non-renewable fossil fuels to petrodictatorships who certainly do not have our best interest in mind and with whom we do NOT share the same values. I will read more and let you know what I learn. This is scary stuff. I'm doing my best to learn more, 20 pages at a time...that's about as far as I get before passing out after a long day of chasing (yes, Kate can run) two kids...and all the other stuff of a busy mom...ok, enough dramatics...here's some funny pics to lighten the mood. Enjoy!

Back to the scrapbook of my life with two kids...this pictures really doesn't require an explanation, other than I have found that I am willing to do some silly stuff to have fun with my kids!

Daddy too. This was actually after he finished assembling the little house that Grandma and Meme bought for the kids for Christmas.