30-second update

Tom left this afternoon for Northbrook, IL. He will get back on a flight late Friday night. They told him that it won't always be like this, but right now, there's lots of backlog to catch up on- and, after all, it is people's safety and well-being that's at stake... the job he's on involves battery backups for the equipment that aren''t working correctly. We crammed a lot of stuff into the three days he was home- we had Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, and opened our presents. Then, we spent Christmas Day at Mike and Billie Nejedly's, in east Mesa. Their son Ron is Tom's best friend from high school in Illinois; Mike and Billie moved out here about 10 years ago. Ron and his family were visiting Mike and Billie for Christmas, and they invited us to be part of their Christmas celebration- it was a lot of fun, but a late night playing Trivial Pursuit (the 90s edition- you'd think I slept through the entire decade- the questions were hard!!). Monday, we drove up to Scottsdale to make sure my boots were the right size... I thought they might be a little big, and they were, so I got a half size smaller- now I can start to break them in. We also did some other errands, and had lunch at a Chicago-style Vienna Beef hot dog stand- they were pretty good, but not quite like the real thing! Hopefully next weekend we'll have a little more time to relax!