Happy New Year!

It's been awhile since our last update, sorry about that. You're stuck with me, Dan, this time around so it may not be quite as eloquent as Shell writes.

We spent Thanksgiving at The Tuckfields in Aiken, SC. We had a very nice weekend and it was good to get out of Athens for a few days. I love Thanksgiving...great food, good company, and plenty of football. After Thanksgiving Shell finished teaching out the rest of her semester and I finished practices until our semester ended. Tucker and Olivia had school up thru Dec. 18th so we stuck around town for a bit. Shell and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary on Dec. 18th by going to one of our favorite local restaurants, Brett's, and then went out Christmas shopping. A special thanks to Shell's visiting teachers who took care of our kids that night.

We made it to Aiken, SC on the 21st for the Christmas Break. The kids were very excited to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We played at the park and outside the first couple of days along with enjoying some good football games, Go Cougars!, at night. The kids were very excited to see what Santa would bring. Olivia wanted a dalmatian Rescue Swim to Me Puppy, Rylie wanted a soap and suds Dora the Explorer, and Tucker wanted a lego bionicle. We put several presents under the tree on the 24th and they were so fun to watch as they explored, picked up and shook, and tried to guess what was there.

Christmas morning came and Tucker was up by 7am but the girls kept sleeping. All the adults made it up before they did. We finally got rolling opening gifts around 8am and the kiddos were so excited as we handed out everyone's gifts. We then started opening and they were all so happy with what their family and Santa got them. Santa brought Olivia her puppy toy, Rylie her Dora, and Tucker his bionicle. Tate was rather oblivious.




Santa did have one surprise gift for the whole family...a Nintendo Wii. Tucker just about lost it, he even commented "I almost passed out!" and "What if this is all a dream?" and kept saying he couldn't believe Santa brought us a Wii. He is so expressive when he's excited...it's hilarious. So the kids were so happy and Mom and Dad were very relieved and excited for the kids. It was a lot of fun.



Of course things weren't all hunky dory...I came down with Pneumonia and was pretty much worthless from late on Christmas day through the following Tuesday. It's a first for me and not very pleasant but I am doing much better thanks to antibiotics and cough syrup.

Shell's brother returned from his LDS mission to Las Vegas on Dec. 29th and it was such a great experience to see him come home. He had a great 2 years and looks ready to tackle the world. He won't be home long before heading to BYU-Idaho this next week.


We are heading home tomorrow and back to the grind. My busy time of year with track & field is here and Shell is going to be teaching 2 night classes this semester. It's going to be a challenge but we know we can do it. Any extra prayers sent our way would be appreciated. Here's hoping you all have a Happy New Year and we wish you all the best. We hope to be able to see some family and friends we haven't seen in awhile this year...we'll keep our fingers crossed.
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