Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! New year’s is fast approaching - where are you planning to be? I'm going to be watching the space needle fireworks from the water and dancing the night away on the deck of a cruise ship. Not bad, eh? I got ambitious yesterday at work and cooked this up - now that Josh, Robin and I all work at the same place we can do something productive during the day ;-)

My parents and Danielle left today, after being here since before Christmas. I'm sorry to see them go; it was great seeing them and doing fun stuff with them all week, although it will be nice to have my bed back ;-) Christmas with them was awesome, and a freakishly beautiful day in Seattle, 50 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. Actually, the whole week they were here was like that. And then they left and the sun went back into hibernation… I've got some other news (I'm sure of it) but I'm supposed to be working right now, so maybe I should get back to that. Photos of Chicago are forthcoming.

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Still in Chicago, really starting to miss home and all the mountains and oceans and humidity and temperate climate… A dozen or so of us had dinner together at the Signature Room friday (96th floor of the Hancock) - classy place, nice view. We hit Michigan avenue saturday and the high-class shopping district (Macy’s, Tiffany, Bloomie’s). We found a whole store that just sells Legos, and they had a city block of Chicago built entirely from Legos - to scale: the John Hancock was about 6′ tall - that was totally sweet. Also a really good dessert shop that was entirely made of gingerbread and candy. I'm not kidding, all the walls, the roof, everything was covered in frosting and gingerbread and candy. And they gave us free cheesecake brownies (yeah!) just ’cause we thought their store was so cool.

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Weekend in Chicago was awesome, now we're back to the grind, as it were. Reading and discussing and running around this big warehouse with a torn-apart house inside so we can learn what a lintel is and why metal lathe is better than wood. (exciting, eh?) Our weekend on the town, however, was quite nice - saw 4 states from the 102nd floor of the Sears tower (it looked like more than that - this place is flat!) and had a few drinks on the 95th floor of the John Hancock. Shane headed home today (bummer!) but Lindsay and I still have plans to paint the town.

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Hey! We're in Chicago - woo hoo! Flight was a bit of an adventure, but we made it and we're making plans to hit downtown all day tomorrow - it’s gonna rock! I'll keep ya posted…

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Let’s see, what’s going on this week. I leave for Chicago this Saturday, so I'm trying to get Christmas all squared away before I leave - buying presents and such. I finished writing Christmas cards and will hopefully get those mailed, so watch your mailboxes. Those of you who are slackers and fail to keep me updated on your mailing address won't be getting any holiday mail…

We had a big phatty windstorm this weekend, leaving pieces of trees all over the place. Our front windows looked like they were going to blast right out onto the floor (but they didn't). Josh and I opted to stay in the house for about 50 hours straight, playing video games, watching cartoons and cruising the internet, rather than venture into the tempest. (Can a windstorm be a tempest, or is that just the sea? Anyway.) If any of you are going to be around New Year’s Eve, we're planning some sort of holiday bash (details TBD). Apparently there are fireworks all over Lake Washington that night and we're the ones with the best view of the lake, so come join us if you can. We'll save you a hot toddy.

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