Happy birthday to the best wife a man could hope for, and the best momma a girl could want. Here’s to the woman who keeps the house running smoothly, keeps the kid happy, and keeps us lean, mean and green.
And let’s not forget, the one who did a killer job polyurethaning (is that a verb?) our stairs! I love you!
December 21-30 was a whirlwind of a Christmas vacation for the Wood family. We had a great time visiting with friends and family. I took lots of photos, so we’ll give you the brief rundown here with links to images from our trip.
* December 20: We had a sort of “Pre-Christmas” at home after I got out of work. We exchanged our gifts so that we didn’t have to bring the stuff for just each other all the way out to Ohio. The rest of our evening was spent packing for our trip!
* December 21: We left after I got out of [work](http://www.christianbook.com/) and drove to a Knight’s Inn in Liverpool, NY. That helped break the trip up a bit.
* December 22: We left Syracuse early in the morning, and, after a stop in Madison, Ohio to visit with Melanie, we drove to Mount Vernon. [Pics from the drive](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/driving_to_ohio/), [Pics from visiting Melanie](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/visiting_melanie/), [Pics from the first evening in Mount Vernon](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/first_evening_in_mount_vernon/)
* December 23: We went to church at [Lakeholm](http://www.lakeholm.org/) in Mount Vernon, then headed down to Columbus to visit with Becky’s friend Heather and her husband Jeff. Then it was back to Mount Vernon for the infamous “Reindeer Hat Party.” [Pics from visiting Heather and Jeff](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/visiting_heather_and_jeff/), [Pics from the Reindeer Hat Party](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/reindeer_hat_party/)
* December 24: We attended the Christmas Eve service at Lakeholm, then had Christmas Eve dinner at home. [Pics from Christmas Eve](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/christmas_eve/)
* December 25: We spent Christmas Day at home with my family! [Pics from Christmas Day](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/christmas_day/)
* December 26: On Wednesday, we went up to Mark and Kirsten’s place in Mansfield for a nice Birthday brunch for Mom! After that, we drove back to Mount Vernon to attend a Game Day that Amy Walton was hosting at her parents’ house. Later in the evening, we had a birthday cake and another little party for Mom. [Pics from Mom’s birthday brunch and that evening](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/moms_birthday/), [Pics from the game day](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/farnham_game_night/)
* December 27: On Thursday, we had some outings sans Catherine. Rebecca and I went out to breakfast at the Southside Diner while Mom and Dad watched Catherine. Then, Rebecca, Dad and I went out to lunch while Mom watched Catherine. Later that evening, Mom and Dad watched Catherine again while we went out to dinner and a movie with Mark and Kirsten. We ended the evening with a family photo shoot. [Pics from the Southside Diner](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/southside_diner/), [Pics from Thursday afternoon](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/thursday_afternoon/), [Pics from dinner with Mark and Kirsten](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/dinner_with_mark_and_kirsten/), [Pics from the photo shoot](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/thursday_evening_photo_shoot/)
* December 28: On Friday morning, we left Mount Vernon and drove back to the Knight’s Inn in Liverpool, NY. The hotel clerk recommended dinner at a delicious local restaurant, Mother’s, and gave us a free voucher to see the local [“Lights on the Lake”](http://lightsonthelake.com/) holiday light display. It was a nice evening with just the three of us! [Pics from the drive](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/mount_vernon_to_liverpool/), [Pics from Friday evening](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/friday_evening_in_liverpool/)
* December 29: On Saturday, we left Liverpool and drove to Townsend to spend the rest of the weekend with Becky’s family.
* December 30: On Sunday, we had lunch in Townsend with Becky’s parents, then they drove back to Danvers with us to help cart back our additional haul of gifts and see our new staircase. [Pics from the “After-Christmas Christmas” in Townsend](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/after_christmas_christmas/)
[See all of the Christmas pics here](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2007/christmas/).
Phew! Since then, we’e been unpacking our stuff and trying to get readjusted to a life back at home. 🙂 We hope that you have all had great holidays with your family or friends, and that you have a happy new year!
I slacked off yesterday, and forgot to write up a blog post about this, but December 18 marked the 20th birthday of the [Perl](http://perl.org/) programming language! Woohoo!
I’ve personally been using Perl for about ten years, and for the past seven years I’ve been using it in my job at [Christianbook.com](http://www.christianbook.com/). I love coding in Perl, and I’ve learned how to make it do some really crazy things over the years! I guess you could say that Perl helps me “put bread on the table,” so I owe [Larry Wall](http://www.wall.org/~larry/) some thanks for creating such a great language and guiding it through all of these years of development.
Here’s to 20 more great years!
So our stairs are “official” now. Our builder finished his cleanup work yesterday, and today he was here at our house for the Town of Danvers building inspector. The inspection went fine, so we now have an officially sanctioned staircase to our downstairs! (We’re trying to get used to calling it that instead of the “basement.”)
At this point, we have a few tasks that we’ll complete on our own before the stairs are “really” done. We need to treat the stair treads with polyurethane and paint the new walls and trim. But we can definitely use the stairs. Hooray!
I’d like to recommend our builder, [Ben Lower](http://www.bjlbuilt.com/). He is a skilled carpenter, and does all of the work himself. A true craftsman, he takes great pride in the precision and finish of his work. He’s also very willing to work with his clients to come up with a solution that fits their needs. He works primarily in the Cape Ann area, as well as the greater North Shore. Visit the website for his company, [BJL Built](http://www.bjlbuilt.com/) if you are looking for someone to do any of your home improvement projects.
The stairs were mostly finished up today. There is still some cleanup to do, as well as the inspection by the Town of Danvers. Hopefully by tomorrow the work will be finished! Here are some pics of what the stairs look like now:
Looks pretty nice, I think! A little paint and cleanup, and we’ll be fine and dandy!
Yesterday, while the work was going on in our house, we took a trip to the [Boston Children’s Museum](http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/index.html).
I had never been there, and Rebecca hadn’t been there since she was a kid herself. We all had a great time… it’s a HUGE place, with a ton of fun stuff for kids and adults alike. We played around with water and bubbles, climbed around in forts, played with “Arthur and Friends”, and even did a cowgirl photo shoot:
I’d highly recommend it for anyone who has young kids and wants a great place to spend the day! They welcome nursing moms, have plenty of restrooms and water fountains, lots of places for parents to sit while kids play safely, and there’s even an Au Bon Pain. In addition to their gift shop, there’s also a really cool Recycled store where they sell random stuff that local businesses have donated.
You can see more photos [here](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2007/boston_childrens_museum/).
On Saturday, our builder finished the knee wall and much of the sheet rock for our stair project. Here’s a view of the knee wall:
On Monday, the builder will be here to install the treads, trim, and anything else that needs to be finished up. After he’s done, we’ll need to paint the wall to match our existing color scheme, but other than that, the stair project will be complete!
The stair project isn’t finished yet, but it’s at least to the stage where there are actual stairs that we can walk up and down!
More pics starting [here](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/house/stairs-during/?g2_page=2). We’re already thrilled with the ability to go down into the basement without having to go outside. Very handy for doing the laundry in this cold weather!
Our builder will be back for a full day of work today, and then he expects to do the final finishing touches on Monday. Woohoo!
1. Today was the starting day for work on the staircase from our living room down into our basement! This is a major hurdle and will enable us to more easily start on our next project – finishing the basement! You can see some [before pics](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/house/stairs-before/) and some [during pics](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/house/stairs-during/) to see what it looks like. Quarters are quite cramped, but we’re excited that we’ll soon have a way to get down into the basement that doesn’t involve going outside of the house!
2. Today was the first big snowstorm of the season in our area. I’m not sure how many inches fell, but it seems to have been quite a bit. Luckily it was fairly powdery, so I was able to brush it off of my car pretty easily. It took me about an hour to get home, which is a lot considering that it’s normally less than 15 minutes. However, it doesn’t hold a candle to a few years ago when it took almost four hours for me to get home (to downtown Beverly, which is only two miles further than I drive now). Here’s some [photos from the evening](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2007/december_13_snowstorm/).
3. As a side note, tonight was the first time I had driven Rebecca’s new Subaru Legacy Wagon in truly bad conditions, and I must say that it was AWESOME! The all-wheel drive and anti-lock brakes were a godsend. It easily backed up our slick, snow-covered driveway, handled all of the twists and turns with no problem at all. Seriously, it’s like the car doesn’t even care that there’s snow. “Hmm, got some driving to do. What’s this white stuff? Oh, nevermind. Just keep drivin’, just keep drivin’…”
4. Corey’s Mini broke down on the way home from work (Peabody to Somerville), and so the three of us packed into the car to drive down and pick him up in Woburn. He’s staying here for the night – hopefully we’ll find a place to squeeze him in!
I hope everyone else affected by the storm is doing okay. Feel free to leave your stories in the comments, or else link to any posts that you’ve written!
I have many fond memories of [college](http://www.gordon.edu/), but end-of-term cramming and projects were not two of them. Over the past few days, I’ve noticed a decidedly tense air around the internet, whether via Tweets on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/), [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/) status updates, AIM status messages, or various blogs and websites. It’s apparently that time on the academic calendar.
Best wishes to all of you students out there. Hopefully you can get everything out of the way and have at least a somewhat relaxing holiday!