"How nice it was to be home with my family for Xmas. After more than three months we could actually look at each other face to face again as we talked, rather than only speak and listen over the phone. There's no doubt about the old expression, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder!"

And what did I do during those three weeks? A lot of visiting, for sure. Jen and Steven and I caught up on the news over breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as over coffee, tea or ice cream. Steven and Buddy and I did some skiing together on our ski trail system behind our eight-sided house. We also did some snow shoveling and wood cutting. Steven likes it when he has a partner to do these things with him. He likes it even better when I do it by myself. Buddy, being a big black woolly dog, well, he doesn't work very hard!

We had many of our friends over to the house and restored old acquaintances with them. I've known many of those folks for more than thirty years. Much of what we talked about was my retirement this spring from the LYSD. I told them how it would be difficult in some ways, but that I had plenty to do to keep me busy when I finally came home for good on May 12, 2000. Then I would no longer have to worry about weather problems during travel in and out of Marshall, or students who never did their *#!!#&*!! homework, or living in a rented house.

Right after Xmas I participated in the Christmas Bird Count, which is a tally taken by members of the local community of the number of species living in the Fairbanks area. I counted about a dozen each of chickadees and redpolls, two species of woodpeckers, gray jays, grosbeaks, ruffed grouse, and ravens.

As you can see, I didn't do anything earthshaking like travel to Paris for the New Year's celebration, but I sure did enjoy being a homedad for a change."