Ski Boot Story

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I certainly did. I flew back to Austin on Christmas Eve and Bryce and I had a great day. I'll give more details about my time home in another post, but I had to share this story first.

The day before I came back to Austin, I went skiing with my parents. I decided to borrow my older sister's ski boots because mine always hurt my feet. So the night before I went and got her boots which were up in the garage in the house she used to live in. When we got to the mountain, I got ready to put my boots on in the locker room. Left foot went in fine. When I put my right foot in, I felt something that felt like sticks or leaves in the toe, so I took my foot out and put my hand in to pull it out. To my HORROR as I began pulling whatever it was out, I discovered that it was a DEAD FREAKING MOUSE. I dropped it and squealed while my parents looked at me like I was crazy. I told them what I had touched and my dad disposed of the mouse in the trash. DISGUSTING. The rest of the day was great, but I still get the heebie jeebies thinking about touching a dead mouse with my bare hands. Looking back it's pretty funny, but oh man, I was freaked out. Hope that gave you a chuckle.

Here's a picture of my dad and I all matchy-match at the end of the ski day.

Tradition

Without a doubt my favorite Christmas Tradition is reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Ever since before I can remember, my dad would start reading to all of the kids on December 1st and finish on Christmas Eve. When I was little, I really loved looking at all the beautiful pictures in the edition that we had. It was this one:

As I got older I started to understand the story more and appreciate how beautiful Dickens' words are. There was one year that we all decided to memorize the first paragraph of the book, which we can all do I'm proud to say. Every year my dad tears up in the same place in the final stave and every year I can't wait to start reading again.

As all of us began getting older, moving away, and getting married, my dad thought it would be a great idea to get each of us our own copy of the same edition of A Christmas Carol. However, it was out of print. So he got on ebay and found four copies. One for each child to continue on the tradition in our own families.

It's been wonderful to continue on this great tradition in my own little family with Bryce. I'm not sure he fully appreciates it yet, but I think he will eventually. It still feels a little weird not to listen to my dad reading every night, but I just love the fact that I can re-create a childhood memory every year, no matter where I am.

P.S. I go home in 3 days!