BRINGING CUTE BACK

Life has calmed down just enough from the holidays to allow some time to post some pictures. I know a sizable portion of visitors to this site come here for nothing but these pics. So allow me to offer a brief sampling of some holiday snaps taking during our recent travels.

In the past, Julie and I have taken fabulous trips to exotic locales like Venice, Singapore, and Vienna. Now we're married and have two kids, so instead we traveled to... wait for it... Las Vegas and Phoenix. The reason, not surprisingly, was family.

Here we see Will (left) and Nate (right) hanging out with their great-grandma Wanda. Grandma Wanda lives outside Las Vegas in a home with some pretty funky carpeting.During their brief stay in the Vegas area, the little guys met with some of their cousins, and bundled up against the sharp desert cold.(That's Will, by the way.)

In Phoenix, the little guys got to visit both sets of grandparents and get spoiled by frequent trips to the park.

Will and Nate really love riding on swings. Will can barely contain himself.And often times loses his hat in a fit of ecstasy.Nate likes it, too.And here we have a random photo of Will at the same park. I can't really think of a good way to tie it in to any of the others.This set of photos appears to be a bit Will heavy, but I guess that only makes up for and earlier set that was all about Nate. But in the interest of fairness, I'll share a short story about traveling with Nate.

First off, I should note that I really don't like traveling with our kids. I understand it becomes more fun as the years advance, but right now a vacation with Nate and Will is much more work than actually going to work. It can be a grind that wears me down in just a few days. The worst part is actually trying to get our little guys on an airplane. There are traveling productions of cirque du soleil that don't require as much manpower and equipment as it takes to move our kids from town to town. Did I mention that I really don't like traveling with our kids?

On the way home, Julie and I spent most of the flight stuffing Nate and Will full of Cheerios. The idea was they were less likely to be screaming if their mouths were full. (The next morning we would learn what happens when you feed very small people massive doses of oat bran. It isn't pretty.) But there was one small portion of the flight where I didn't have to wrestle Nate (my charge during the flight) or stuff him full of cereal: the takeoff.

At some point during the taxi process, Nate noticed the window 5 inches from his face. Outside, there were all sorts of flashing lights and moving objects. He was fascinated. We sped down the runway and he didn't make a sound, he just stared out the window and watched the world whiz by him. When we lifted off, Nate's mouth opened slightly as the bright lights of Phoenix's urban sprawl appeared before him. He was mesmerized.

For as long as there were lights on the ground to be seen, Nate sat quietly with his face pressed against the window. Then it grew dark outside and he lost interest with the window and went back to finding ways to torture me. But for a few moments, I remembered why it's so cool having little kids: you get to relive the funnest parts of our world for the first time all over again.

It almost made the foul diaper that awaited us the next morning worth it.