We have video of every wiener dog race heat – they were super cute and funny – but here is just one and also some of the barrel and stein races too.

We took a weekend trip to Maine and New Hampshire with Josh’s folks to do some leaf peeping, antiquing, brewery hunting, and euchre playing. We had such a fun trip and loved exploring NH’s White Mountains – especially Franconia Notch – with them.

Josh’s actual Birth Day.  (Not really, this is a few days later… after the blizzard of ’78 was over and Josh & Judi could go home.)  So this is George, Big Brother Thadd & Josh:

Baby Josh & the Fam:

Here Josh says, “I am 4!”  (I wanted to put a pic with Shan in!  Jackie & Grandma & Grandpa Mates are helping to celebrate the big FOUR.)

Here Josh says, “I am 4 (x 8)!”  Ha.

Becky got this awesome Celtics green tee for Josh!

And now Josh won’t be so cold with these great gifts from Mom & Dad!

And these South Africa guidebooks will be so useful! Thanks again Mom & Dad!

Watch out Dave!  Josh is going to beat you in shuffleboard now!  (Thanks Mom & Dad Allen!)

Manhattan is thrilled for Josh’s birthday.

As is Magellan.

Thanks again for the gifts and cards and phone calls and texts and Facebook wall posts.  It was a great birthday.  We finished it off playing Josh’s new Wii game (the shuffleboard and darts are our new favorites!), and cooking a great dinner that was made even better thanks to a Christmas gift from Shan – Argentinian wine, carted across the globe in her backpack!  A great way to celebrate 32 years.

This was our first Christmas holiday not spent with our families.  We’ve missed our families dearly and been conscious of not having them nearby.  As a part of keeping our spirits up, we have been really deliberate with thinking about our first Christmas doing our own married couple thing, getting to start our own traditions.  So while we are missing all our family and friends back in the Midwest and Northwest and San Francisco, we are enjoying our first solo married couple Christmas too.

We began our tradition-making with Josh wrapping his last minute gifts that arrived today while we drank Starry Nights and watched White Christmas.  We also opened presents with our Fiala half of the Fiallen family over Skype!  George, Judi, Shannon and Thadd are in California for Christmas.  It was great to be able to see their faces and exchange gifts with them “in person” even though we couldn’t be there with them.

More pictures of our Tree and our Skyping follow the jump!

Our parents and Grandpa Brown took us to Nantucket to celebrate the big graduation and take a little time off! It was great to relax and be with our family, even if it was a little rainy! We do love Cisco Brewery and we love Nantucket’s cedar shingles!

More pictures after the jump.

More pictures after the jump.

*a special note for the wondering: the plastic lobster was thoughtfully brought by Gary to be a physical representation of Josh as we all missed him and knew how much he wanted to be there and show his love and support of jOnny and Mel.  The lobster was a hit.  Thanks Gary.