Ok…I know this is a day late, but I didn’t want to take away any time from yesterday.  It was an awesome Christmas experience with a five and two year old.  I think we were up of by 7am and everything was opened by 8.   We started at our house and then moved on to Grandma and Grandpa’s (my wife’s family) for brunch.  We ended the day at my sister’s house with all of my family.  I think by the time we returned home Blake was seriously delirious.  He didn’t want to go to bed until he had Woody from Toy Story.  Then I made the mistake of not bringing his hat.  So that meant another ten minutes looking for Woody’s hat…

We left out some Oreo Coasters, milk, and some grapes for Santa…

“To infiniti and beyond” is Blake’s favorite Buzz phrase…at least it was yesterday.

He opened up a Diego train set and was pretty much mesmerized for the next hour…

Cole got a Nintendo DS.  Waiting for that battery to charge for two hours were the longest of his life.

This might have been one of the coolest gifts of the day…NIGHT VISION GOGGLES!!

We were teasing Granny about getting a new “drinking glass” and she pulled this one…

For the guy who has everything in his life…this is the perfect gift.  My weakness is definitely Frank’s Hot Sauce Xtra Hot!!  My wife took this shot, so I am giving her full credit of course!

Santa came through with a couple of Canon 5D Mark II’s to put under my tree.  I’ll be sure to offer up a review after tomorrow’s wedding.  But I can tell you that just from the few test shots that I have taken with it that I am already in love with it.

I hope everybody had a wonderful, blessed Chrstmas holiday.  I can’t wait for tomorrow not only to shoot with the new 5D’s, but also to shoot my last wedding for the 2008 year.  It is going to be a very special occasion not just because of the people involved, but also because it just puts an end to an awesome year with my photography and for that I am very thankful. 

 *** Update on the 2009 Wise Photography Workshops.***  Spots are filling up, so be sure to contact me before January 3rd to get the early bird discount.  I am so looking forward to jump right in with everybody who got their new DSLR cameras for Christmas.  I have already talked to three people who are firing away with their 50D and the “new lens” people as well.

It doesn’t seem possible that Christmas is only 10 days away.  It is funny how when you are a kid that it seems like it takes forever to get here, but then when you are older it seems like Christmas gets here so quickly that it is sometimes hard to find the time to relax and enjoy it.

I did put up all the lights on our house on a pretty warm day this year, so that worked out for the best.  My wife told people last year that I needed a 24 foot extension ladder as a Christmas present, so of course that meant that I didn’t have an excuse not to put the lights all over the roof this year.  If you ever get bored and want to experience something really cool just come over and I’ll extend the ladder up to 22 feet and you can touch the top of our roof at the A frame.

We have the Christmas tree up and yesterday was the first day that I started up a fire in the fireplace.  So now it is time for my boys (ages five and two) to play the waiting game.  Cole has already started counting down and tells me every day how many days are left.  I think we are going to visit with Santa this week, so hopefully he can come through with the mighty list of things that they have prepared for him.

Each year we try to pick out ornaments for the boys to represent the things that are important to them at that time in their lives.  Blake (2) is really into Nemo (Monsters Inc., Toy Story, Madagascar, etc) so we have the Nemo ornament and the Buzz Lightyear.  We let Cole pick out his ornament and he picked out a take out order box of Chinese food.   His favorite restaurant right now is Jay’s Authentic Thai restaurant…Sometimes I wish everybody thought of things the way a five year old does.

I can’t remember who got me this ornament…I don’t think I have any camera ornaments, so this is probably the next best thing that they could find.  If I don’t have a camera in my hand then I am usually on my laptop.