You may be asking yourself, if your self is part of my extended family, which we exchange ornaments instead of more expensive Christmas gifts, "Self: Why haven't I received a Christmas Card and Ornament from Adam and Megan?"
Well,
self erm, you. That, you can blame on the United States Postal Service.
You see, they were mailed. Well before Christmas. We painstakingly hand signed and addressed every card and envelope (I know… itty bitty pity party… but when you know how to use a Mail Merge, why wouldn't you? (Answer: Wife won't let you.)) and stuffed the applicable ornaments into the applicable envelopes and applied a bevy of 41-cent stamps: one for each envelope.
Then, instead of dropping them in a mailbox somewhere, Megan took them to the post office to ask a professional mail clerk (they go to school and get certified, right?) if any additional postage was necessary — which she was assured wasn't. They were mailed, and a couple of days later we received a bundle of them (though oddly, not all) in our mailbox wrapped neatly with a rubber band and each with an ugly sticker or hand-written note indicating that 17 cents additional postage was required presumably due to the extra quarter-inch of girth each held from being stuffed with an ornament.
Disgusted with the lies of the professional postal clerk, Megan took them back to the post office, explained the situation to another professional mail clerk, and affixed an additional 10-cent, 5-cent, and 2-cent stamp to each before having the clerk send them off to their destinations.
Again, days later, a couple of them came back because, presumably, the second professional mail clerk failed to clearly mark that the additional postage had indeed been paid, and (or possibly "or") someone saw the sticker/handwriting indicating that additional postage was needed but didn't check thoroughly enough for the "ok" written next to it, and decided that sending it back to us a second time would be cheaper than just sending it on its way.
(Note to self regarding scheme to destroy the US Postal Service by way of drained budget: Send lots of letters with insufficient postage over and over again without affixing additional postage until, inevitably, they can no longer afford to buy gas to bring the letters back to me.)
I knew we should have just
elf'd ourselves and called it a day. Next year you're all just getting e-cards.
There are a lot of photos I took this week that I like a lot, so hopefully you don't mind me going a little nuts here.
My Nephew with my Father In Law, Christmas morning.
My Mother In Law reading to my Niece, Christmas Morning.
I spent a lot of time this week working on my manual-focus skillz. You can't always count on auto-focus to get exactly what you want within a second or two, so you need to be ready to flip into manual focus and grab that odd shot before it disappears. (Not that the screen was going anywhere…)
This week Moxie joined the ranks of the Sith. Word around the water-cooler is that they have better dental and vision coverage.
Meanwhile, Ollie got something new to climb on… and won't even get squirted with the water gun for it!
Megan took this final picture, so I can't take credit for it… but it definitely deserves some attention! Good job, Peanut!
If you like my "Weekly Winners" photos, go check out some of the pictures posted by others. They are all
linked at the bottom of this post, and more are added throughout the day.
Welcome back for another installment of
What the heck did we do this year? Oh yeah that one thing. All things considered, it's been a quiet year for us. We didn't get any new jobs, houses, pets, or relatives this year.
Megan obtained her Clinical Social Work License in May, the highest level of licensure she can obtain as a social worker short of becoming a doctor. She can now see Medicare clients, and works one day a week at the main office in Downingtown in addition to her normal schedule in Oxford. In August, Adam obtained a special "Advanced ColdFusion Developer Certification" from Adobe, which makes him more marketable to clients and a more valuable asset to his company. Speaking of which, E-Tech was bought in March by
Perficient, but not much has changed for Adam. Just last week he had his 2nd yearly review and received a promotion, making him a Senior Technical Consultant!
In February we went skiing with some friends at
Blue Knob. It was Megan's first time and by the end of the weekend she had worked up the skill and the courage to leave the bunny slope a few times. Adam was still in a lot of pain from his Crohn's/Spondylitis, but happy to deal with the pain just for the opportunity to spend some time on the slopes again; snowboarding is one of his favorite hobbies.
This summer we did lots of camping, canoing, and fishing; and to make our outdoor lifestyle a little easier Adam traded in his car for a pickup truck. He got a Ford Explorer Sport Trac, which has a full size cab with room for the dog and extra family or friends, and can easily carry our canoe on the roof. (Adam is also thrilled to finally have heated seats and four-wheel-drive!) We also took advantage of the good weather this summer to repair our fence (hat tip to Mom & Dad R) and plant a few trees along the back of our yard to provide a little bit more privacy.
August brought the only wedding of the year: Megan's long time friend Luke was married in Detroit, making this the second farthest we've driven for a wedding to date. (No
wiener-mobile this time, either.) Adam also started
Remicade treatment in August for his
Ankylosing Spondylitis and Crohn's Disease, and thankfully that seems to have ended months (that felt like years) of anguish and restlessness. It has helped him so much that he often forgets he ever even had back pain!
And just in time!
In September we celebrated our second wedding anniversary by taking a week's vacation to Ireland. We saw most of the major cities along a loop of the southern third of the island, and took almost a thousand
pictures! It was so much fun and so beautiful, we wished we could just bring it all home with us. In fact if you're all willing to come with us (because we can't just leave you behind), then we're ready to make the move to
Kenmare.
We were fortunate enough to get tickets to a Penn State football game in October (hat tip to Zach, his dad, and
his parents), and took the opportunity to visit Megan's Grandparents B in State College, PA. It was great to finally see Penn State play in person, and apparently we were good luck because they brought home a win that day!
So here's to another wonderful year from the Pennsylvanian Tuttle's and we wish you all a happy holiday.
Much love,
Megan and Adam
