A Busy Week!

Merry Christmas!  (Well, Merry Belated Christmas wishes!)  I hope you all had a great Christmas, too!  Ours went really well.  We had a lot of fun spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with Brandon's family.  They have this fun tradition of everyone spending $1 on a white elephant gift, wrapping the gift up, and then doing an exchange on Christmas Eve.  Brandon's younger siblings don't quite get the point that whatever they buy will be given away and not kept!  The second to youngest, Jacob, for example, bought a plastic mini golf set at the dollar store.  Brandon's dad won it in the gift exchange, and Jacob wasn't too thrilled with this because he really wanted it.  Fortunately, Santa knew just how much Jacob wanted that plastic putter and gave the exact same mini golf set to Jacob in his stocking!  Nicholas had so much fun on his first Christmas morning, though!  He woke up at 6:00, so I brought him into bed with us since I couldn't sleep, either.  He promptly crawled over to Brandon and woke him up, jabbering all along the way about something probably very important.  Then he fell back asleep between us, and Brandon and I watched the old Miracle on 34th Street together in bed.  It was such a peaceful pause before the craziness of stockings and presents!

Christmas afternoon and evening were spent at my parents' home, as those of us Hales still located in Cincinnati came together for the traditional Hales Family Talent Show!  It was great!  My mom surprised the family by playing the fiddle (she's been taking lessons secretly!).  Brandon, Christopher, and my dad all played the guitar.  I did a slideshow presentation on the computer of all the places we've been this year (23 of the 50 states, plus Guam).  Sarah played the flute.  Scott wrote a comical poem about a childhood incident near and dear to us all...teaching

 Christopher to spit.  Connor wrote a book (as dictated to her mom).  Emily attacked pillows.  And Nicholas made funny motor noises with his lips!  It was busy, but fun, and we missed those who were unable to attend.

Last week Brandon also started a new job.  He was going to be working for one of the Top 100 ranked non-profit organizations nationwide as a petition signature gatherer for an environmental group.  We were fairly excited about this job since he's been out of work since Dec. 1st.  Furthermore, Brandon wants to work in the non-profit sector after graduation, so we figured this would be a good experience.  Unfortunately, we found out that his pay would be solely based on how much money he could raise as he went door to door gathering signatures.  So, not only might we not get paid enough to survive with, but some of the people Brandon would be working with had significantly less than moral standards (one owned several questionable websites, if you know what I mean).  We didn't think that was a great opportunity.  However, Brandon went out on Friday and was pretty much led to this amazing job working at a nearby airport.  He'll be working at one of the terminals at this small airport and will be helping out with all sorts of things like guiding the planes in, baggage handling, refueling the planes, etc.  

He's also been told that TONS of celebrities come through there when they have to be in Cincinnati, so he'll get to greet most of them as they get off the plane by welcoming them to Cincinnati.  The president has even been through there, and they expect lots of the presidential candidates to come through over the course of the next year.  Bottom line is that this is a great job, and we're so proud of Brandon for getting it!  The guy he interviewed with had a stack of 60+ applications on his desk that people had filled out online.  However, Brandon was the first person to actually come to the terminal, fill out an application, and ask to speak with a manager.  His boss said that as soon as he saw Brandon, he knew he would hire him, and that he felt God was smiling down on him by sending Brandon his way!  

Once again, I hope you all had a great Christmas!  We truly value all of our friendships and are grateful for each of you!  We wish you a safe and Happy New Year!