They say this year could be the end of the world. In the Mayan calendar… or the alien invasion of the X-Files. Personally though, I’m living as though I still have a few years left to go.

So far in this new year I have been cleaning my house, putting away my Christmas decorations, playing with my new Christmas gadgets and starting back at work. I missed my little kiddos. There was a smaller class today, and they were so well behaved. I may not enjoy them quite so much once they’re all full of their vim and vigor again. Of course, they’re also getting older. By the end of the year they’ll be so big and tall… and four.

For Christmas this year Josh and I went down to sunny Florida to visit his family. We had a good time and the weather was beautiful! It felt like Hawaii, except that when we jumped into the swimming pool we nearly froze. I guess the water drops down towards the overnight temperature when it isn’t heated. Josh’s dad bet us dinner that we couldn’t stay in for 15 minutes before we jumped in – but we did.

We always go to Nana’s house for fondue on Christmas Eve. Nana makes us stockings, and she also makes a treasure hunt for our big gift. I love it. My dad used to make us treasure hunts for our birthday parties. I love riddles and puzzles, and I don’t think anyone can be too old for a good treasure hunt. Nana added a new twist this year: at the end of the trail of clues we had to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. On the puzzle was a jumble of letters. Once we unscrambled all of the letters, it would tell us the location of the final gift.

We got to spend time with all of the grandparents, which is always so nice. We also spent time with some of Josh’s high-school friends. We had lunch at Downtown Disney, walked around a little bit and saw amazing Lego structures. I don’t know if anyone else in our group was as amazed about them as I was, but I loved them! They were incredible! Of course, I do play with Legos occasionally, and get paid for it…

One of Josh’s friends made a video of their Mancation to Costa Rica last year, and we watched that. It was a lot of fun, as always, to see them all. Especially since several of his friends have been living in various countries around the world, and one couple is about to leave again for another adventure in South America for an undetermined amount of time.

After Christmas, Josh’s parents opened his presents to them which were board games, so we spent quite a few hours playing Scrabble and Electronic Monopoly (which is more fun because you get to swipe your credit-card – except it is still horrid to go bankrupt, repeatedly, because of your husband).

We also had a great game of mini-putt one night in which… dum-dum-dee-dum… I won! I haven’t won a game of miniature golf in years and I have never won against Josh. It was fun.

But now I’m home again, vacation time is over. Warm weather is but a memory. Happy January 2012! My resolution? Write more often on my blog. Will you read it?