Well, it’s been a terrific couple of weeks for me. I capped off the vacation with a family visit and had a wonderful time with them at Christmas.

The big present I got for myself this year was the surprise trip to NYC and Vermont. (You can read about those here if you haven’t already done so.) As requested, photos from Tampa, Manhattan, Canada, and Stowe are up here, here, here, and here.

The big present for me from my family was a shopping spree of sorts where I got to pick out the jacket I wanted. Of course, I did this prior to New York. It’s funny, but I’ve been to NYC every December since 2002, and it’s always just coincidence. What isn’t though is that it is like a windy, frigid tundra in December downtown. It was great having my new leather coat with a heavy liner working for me in the chilly snowy weather up there. Note to self: February is a bit late for thank-you cards, so get on it!

When I touched down at Dulles airport, my mom was there to pick me up. I said hello to everyone and sealed myself off in the study so I could start my big project. The goal was to document the trips of 2004 onto a DVD, using Dad’s iMac. It took about 2 hours to set up a photo montage in iMovie of my trip to Graceland. I finally figured out that in iDVD, you just drop in photos and it’ll do the rest, including auto-spacing them out to transition and be done by the time the music (that you also drop in) is complete. Amazing. Easy. Simple to use. I was hooked.

I spent 19 hours on the 23rd of December sorting photos, touching them up and organizing them in iPhoto to get ready for the DVD. On Christmas Eve, we all went to church, and I was in and out of the study all day and night, working on compiling my first DVD. I probably spent another 10 hours on the project.

When I was done though, I had an awesome recollection of the entire year. It was so much fun picking out the music and photos to use. It’s wild to think of how much I’ve seen in just one year. I think the next DVD I do will be of all the weddings that I’ve gone to recently.

…But first, I need to graduate so I can get the Mac for myself. I’m still 4 classes away and cannot freakin’ wait to be done and over with this stuff. The end is so close I can taste it.

New Year’s was a lot of fun. Eric and Kelly graciously hosted the party at their place, which was really nice. I wasn’t expecting a cop to be living next door to me when I got home from Christmas. –That really puts a crimp on late-night celebration plans. So, we headed to Goochland for the party.

Chris Hollomon accepted a position in Richmond, so he and Karen will be moving shortly. We searched for houses on Saturday, which was a lot of fun. Having my company’s tool was very handy, as we could look up listings with my BlackBerry as we drove around. We called a realtor on Saturday and did a few walk-throughs. I saw a lot of potential in my future doing this- buying a fixer-upper SUPER cheap, getting a tiny-sized loan, then flipping the house in 2 years, fully restored and pristine and moving on to the next big project.

Anyone out there think I can’t do that? ;)