Happy New Decade Everyone!

Hope everyone enjoyed Christmas and any other holidays you celebrated. Well it has been about 5 months since the last update and quite a bit has been happening. Obviously the activity taking up most of my time has been studying at University. The time off for winter break was a welcomed rest, as the fall semester was a stressful one. To add to the large credit load I had this past semester (18 credits), I tutored 3 different students between 6 and 8 hours a week. I tutored in 7 different subjects with these 3 students and while it was at times challenging, I really enjoyed it and learned a lot in the process. This semester will be 17 credits of classes and I will continue tutoring. I have also added a psychology minor and I am planning to graduate by the spring of 2011.

Over winter break from UWP Becky and I attended numerous holiday events which kept us busy. Also Becky just turned 21 on December 27, which was a lot of fun. Just so all you non-Yanks know, in the US turning 21 is a huge deal because that is when you can legally drink. So to start this out I took Becky out to the bars at midnight on her birthday to celebrate in the town where we live. Most of the bars give you at minimum a free shot, but she also got a plastic drinking boot & a free t-shirt. It was the first time she had really drank a lot, so we took it easy on her and she didn't feel too hung over, which was great. We had 2 friends, Katie and Julie, come down to help us celebrate, but they couldn't go out since they are underage. However, they made a cow cake for her and fed us after picking us up from the bars which was nice. On the day of her birthday we celebrated with Katie & Julie and her family and friends closer to where she is from in Iowa. We attended a family gathering, went bowling and ate at Happy Joe's, which is a fun place to celebrate birthdays. It was a great day and she really enjoyed herself which was fun. On Wednesday, December 30, I turned 31, but kept everything really nice and relaxed spending time with Becky and my family. I wanted to thank everyone for the birthday calls, emails and Facebook messages and wall posts. I haven't had the time to reply to everyone, but they were all very appreciated! Having Christmas, New Years and both of our birthdays all in the span of 7 days made for a full week that is for sure. Overall we had about 10 family gatherings between our families and saw several old friends and it was a great month.

Since there hasn't been any recent travels I went with non travel pictures, although they sum up the last 5 months pretty well. The first one is from when Becky & I visited nephew John and niece Shelby at their house. First Becky pulled John in his wagon, but then he wanted to pull Becky so she got in the wagon he tried to pull her, which he could do if given a little push start (2010_01_19-Becky_in_the_Wagon). The second picture is from a cancer walk that my family did and is of John playing in his driveway after the event (2010_01_19-John). The next attached picture is from Becky's 21st Birthday party with Katie and Julie before we went out (2010_01_19-Katie_Becky_&_Julie), they gave Becky the crown that she was wearing that night. Next is a picture (2010_01_19-Scooby_Doo_Gang) from the Masquerade Ball that our friends attended with us. As you can see we dressed like the Scooby Doo gang and yes we won a prize in the costume competition! Last but not least is a picture of Shelby (2010_01_19-Shelby) when mom, dad, Becky and I had the kids out for John's first time decorating Christmas cookies. He got better as we went and the destruction was held to a minimums so we did pretty good! Although a lot of the cookies have color blotches because John just wanted to hold the color over one spot ;)

This coming summer Becky and I are planning a trip for Asia. We would like to visit Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & Thailand and maybe more. Our flights leave from the US the week after final exams on May 17 and we will return to the US on August 18. Complete flight details are available at www.brockwaterman.com/itinerary.htm (below the class listings). If you have been to Asia before feel free to email us with what you loved while you were there or anything to avoid. Also if you are going to be in the area during the summer let me know and maybe we can meet up. It should be a great trip and we are really looking forward to it.

As always if you would like to be taken off the travel update list just let me know…

Love & Peace!