December update

Here are some highlights from the past few weeks.

In November, I celebrated my birthday. Kirk was gone on the actual birthday (he was in El Salvador), but the next week he made a wonderful cheesecake and invited some friends over to help us eat it.
For Thanksgiving, we drove to Arizona and spent some nice time with family.
We got to see the Desert Botanical Garden.
We also took a hike in the real desert, i.e. the Superstition Mountains.
One afternoon we got to spend some time with Lamar and we rode the trains at the McCormick Train Park in Scottsdale.
In December, Edward turned 4 years old. He requested a cake shaped like Ft. McHenry (Baltimore, Md.) of Star-Spangled Banner fame. Now, really, how many 4-year-olds want a Ft. McHenry cake? It took a bit of thinking and research, but I managed to get something reasonably close--at least it satisfied him.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the cannons he wanted, but he was sort of content with candles.
Our monthly illnesses continued. We were sick in November and then sick in December. At least we all now have received the H1N1 vaccination and two of the children also had the seasonal flu vaccine.
And finally, this past week I got a new walk-in refrigerator/freezer. Actually, it was a walk-out fridge/freezer combination. I was getting worried about space in our small refrigerator since we had several dinners to host for Kirk's research and teaching assistants, and their families. But then I realized that the high temperature was below freezing. So I just put the food outside on the porch to freeze or cool down or whatever I needed at the time. It was convenient.