Screw an XBox. All I want for Christmas is a dead dog to wear on my head. Thankfully we've got a Cabela's store just a few miles away, so I can try it out before Shelly buys it for me.


I already got my Christmas gift from Shelly. I'm now a member of ASP. Looks like it'll be worth the price of admission.


If you didn't get our Xmas card, here's the letter we sent out. It's nothing you don't already know.

Happy holiday greetings to all!

Our big Maggie-news this year is that she started school. She's only 3 and a half, but it turns out that we've got a nice Montessori school right up the street from us that will take younger kids for a half-day. So we got her enrolled and she started school in August.

She's adjusted very well to school and is making good progress there. Her latest lesson is "the movable alphabet", which is a bunch of letter cards that kids use to construct their own words. She was excited to take on that lesson, as it's apparently something that the big kids have been working on for a while. She also likes working with numbers and is determined to count all the way to one hundred by herself.

We're going to our first school play in December. Her class is representing Australia in an "extravaganza" (Maggie's words) about how countries all around the world celebrate the holidays. She's been practicing her "Christmas Down Under" song over and over in the car. It was cute at first, but it's not a very long song, so you get to hear it a half-dozen times by the time you get to the grocery store.

We've also got a bit of sad news. For those who remember our dog Max, we lost her this year. She was 14 years old and had been in declining health for a couple of years. We miss her pretty terribly and will probably be getting a new dog soon.

Hope this letter finds you well, and we all wish you a great 2006!

John, Shelly, & Maggie