Christmas 2011

We don't go a-wassailing, so let's all get together for a good, hardy, noggling! It's the most wonderful time of the year, according to the retail sector, and everyone is all yuley with joy.

Once again, we decided that the world doesn't want hard copies of Christmas greetings from the Tolmans enough to warrant paying postage to send them. As is oft said in our home, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

It's been an adventurous year for the Tolman Five. Jon altered his career pathway and is now teaching nursing at Colorado Technical University. There should be another shift in employment by next year's end, seeing as the Kansas City Campus for CTU is no longer admitting students and the nursing program will be kaput at the end of 2012. This had very little to do with Jon's addition to the faculty.

Becky has acquired some new skills as a homemaker, including several that literally make homes. She's a more than capable drywall-mudder, tile-grouter, and project manager. The current and ongoing project is the finishing of the attic, which included re-routing the heating and A/C ducts, relocation of a load-bearing wall, and construction of stairs. Though Jon and friend Kyle Cromar have been doing more of the brute labor, it's Becky's soft, yet firm looks of direction that have kept the workers on task.

Samantha has been excelling at everything. She has gained numerous compliments from her coaches and teachers in gymnastics, piano, hog-wrestling, bread-flipping, and competitive water-boarding. She is the child that will one day do something that requires as much ambition but more morality than holding elected office.

Lucy does not care about excelling at everything. Even though she's the best and smartest of any of her peers, she would rather pretend that she's disciplining her class of ponies than practice doing something more measurable. Her arson case is currently in the jury-selection phase.

Nora is cute, in the way that a murderous, possessed doll is cute right before its head spins around and it starts stabbing people. Her most-honed skills include whining, Gregorian chanting, and depriving her parents of sleep.

It turns out that this is being posted about 10 days after Christmas, which is good enough for the folks in Sweden.

"Farväl!"