The 4th Day of Christmas - Travel Version

OK, I'm going to ask the obvious question here. What's this guys fascination with birds? For the fourth day in a row, he comes trotting over to his true loves house with some form of winged creature, this time deciding that blackbirds would make an ideal Christmas present. If there was any doubt about the depth of his girlfriends love for him it can certainly be put to rest by now. Lori would have kicked me to the curb a long time ago in this gift giving fiasco.

Colly Bird? Beats me. It's black. That's close enough for me.

The 3rd Day of Christmas - Travel Version

It's not really a great day to be writing this. I write a lot of my posts with a not very serious tone, and I focus on the laughter, but I don't feel much like laughing today. The events of yesterday in Connecticut leave me broken-hearted and hurting for the people affected, and really all I want to do today is curl up in a ball and feel sad. It's not very fun or frivolous, but it's kind of the way I feel right now.

The 2nd Day of Christmas - Travel Version

Welcome back to the 12 Days of Christmas - Travel Version. Today is the second day of Christmas. Yesterday we replaced the rather inconvenient partridge in a pear tree with a night at the Treehouse Treesort in Takilma, Oregon. An excellent trade if I do say so myself. Today we're dealing with "Two Turtle Doves". Great. More birds.

Do you know what Turtle Doves are? They're pretty much pigeons. Somehow I can't see myself presenting my wife with two pigeons for Christmas as a symbol of our undying love. I mean, if that's what she wanted, I'd make it happen, but I went down through her list and although there's a bit of an illegible scribble between "Tiffanys" and "Porsche", I don't think it says "pigeons". Failing clarification, we're going to have to do better, and I have a perfect gift for the second day of Christmas.

The 1st Day of Christmas - Travel Version

Has anybody ever bought you a partridge in a pear tree? Me neither, although I have to admit that I'm not that disappointed. I'm not a real bird person, and I wouldn't even begin to know how to take care of a partridge. Plus there's the whole pear tree thing to deal with. Does the partridge have to stay in the tree? Do I keep the pear tree inside or outside? Does the partridge eat the pears (that would be handy), or do I have to feed him something else? Truthfully, as a first day of Christmas gift, I don't think I'd be that impressed.

Those probably aren't partridges are they?

How to Cancel a Trip

It's life. You don't always get to choose the circumstances in which you live, and despite all my enthusiasm for traveling, there are some things that are more important. Occasionally those things will raise their heads, and travel has to become a secondary consideration. It's happened to us this Christmas, and unfortunately, we're finding ourselves needing to be closer to home than a trip to Anaheim allows. We've put it off as long as possible, hoping for a different solution, but now it's time to cancel our trip.