Rinsefirst

This is my Christmas post disclaimer…  (And look at that, it counts as part of my Christmas post messages).

I wanted everyone to know that I slightly cheated with my Christmas post messages. See, as I pointed out 1 month ago today, I managed to find a way to remove a certain event of my life off the calendar. That event was known as my birthday.

It was really rather easy… All it took was the following:

• A Christmas party in the morning (8:00am to about 1:00pm)
• A Highschool reunion in the afternoon (2:00pm to about 5:00pm)
• and a Company Christmas party in the evening (7:00pm to about 11:00pm)
• And to fill in the gaps: my cousins arrived in town.

That said, a lot of the gifts that I am passing off as Christmas gifts were actually birthday gifts as well. In fact, I’m not sure I can separate in my mind ANY birthday gifts this year (other than some cards with money in them).

So although I must admit this was probably my best Christmas ever (which made up for what I felt was a rather dissappointing Christmas last year), you must also realize it was probably my best birthday ever (since the two events have forever been linked).

I also should mention, just to be a complete as possible… I also believe many people see this as Justin’s “last” Christmas with the family (and as a “kid”). Something about the fact that I am getting married in 7 months.

May my many blessings this year find a way to bless you as well this year… And may you continued to be as blessed as I have been for years to come.

Ok… so I really didn’t think I would post today… Ha!

Happy remembrance-of-the-day-that-is-now-an-Out-of-Time-Continuum-day to me
Happy remembrance-of-the-day-that-is-now-an-Out-of-Time-Continuum-day to me
Happy the day that is now an Out-of-Time-Continuum day dear me
Happy remembrance-of-the-day-that-is-now-an-Out-of-Time-Continuum-day to me

It’s only 4 hours later!

Relationships are hard.

Especially those of the long-term, wife/husband kind. Now, I’m 100% sure that I don’t understand the full brunt of it yet, but at the same time, I am already prepping myself as much as I can to understand what married life will be like.

One of the harder things to “simulate” is what it will actually be like to live together. It’s something I don’t think can be simulated without actually doing it, so I doubt I will know until Amber and I are married. However, I’d really like to think that road trips/family vacations give some small taste of it.  I’d love to think that… but I think I know better.

In fact, I believe that road trips can do wonders for relationships. I think the time together doing something out of the ordinary can help remind both parties just why they fell in love with the other person. I know the last 5 days with Amber in Nebraska did that for me. Was it all peachy keen? No… But when there were hiccups on the trip, we talked through them together, and overcame them together.  I’m very very happy she came with us for Christmas, and I can’t wait to spend every Christmas here on out as a married couple.

It was kind of like that movie we went to see tonight: National Treasure 2. All I will say about National Treasure is the following:

• It was the first movie I’ve seen in awhile that I actually wanted to go see. (I could have done without enchanted)
• It was good.
• I can’t wait for third movie :-).
• The previews have me salivating for more future movies, including Prince Caspian (yay) and  The Dark Knight (yay!)

On another note… Happy birthday to me (because I have to tell people it’s my birthday with it being outside the normal space-time continuum).