last blog of the year

it is busy here in the johnston household as we prepare for the annual padmos christmas vacation. we are off to st. lucia this year and gone are the days of no worries as we sip grant's rum punch and watch our brothers and sisters chase after their kids. now we are already worried about whether we have enough baby food and diapers and we haven't even left the house yet. it will be an adventure, to say the least.

as i was getting out our passports, i had a little chuckle as i looked at gerrit's picture and thought the rest of you might enjoy it too. hugh and i took gerrit to the post office to get his first passport when he was about 6 weeks old (going on 85 in the picture). if you look closely, you will notice it is actually a picture of hugh and gerrit as hugh is holding him up against the backdrop. the funniest part is that he will have this picture until he is 5.

we have had a busy weekend of basketball games, packing, dinner with friends, and a web cam christmas with the johnstons and sharps in colorado on saturday morning. we hope each of you has a very merry christmas and we will be back with more monkey tales in the new year.