Happy New Year from the West Coast. We got up at 5:30 this morning so that we could get ready to go view the parade floats getting decorated for the Rose Parade. We have complimentary breakfast each morning as part of the tour. From there we headed down to the first of the decoration sites. We saw six of the floats from the designer that has won an award for his floats for the last 12 years. The first thing I noticed when we entered the tent was the smell of flowers. It was just like walking into a florist shop. Each float starts as an artistic sketch. From the sketch the metal workers create the shell of the float on top of a truck chassis. Foam is injected into the shell and then painted the color the final float is going to look like. From there flowers, seeds, and grass are added one piece at a time to the float. It looks like a pains taking process and it’s pretty amazing that so many floats are created from scratch each year for the parade. We went to see a couple of more float making sites near the Rose Bowl next. Unfortunately it started raining and we got pretty drenched.

We were scheduled to go to Band Fest next, but we decided to sit that out since it was raining so much. Instead we went searched for a battery charger for our camera. I forgot our battery charger at home and the batter light came on while we were looking at the floats. We had the driver at the hotel drive us to Best Buy and we found a charger there.

In the evening we headed to the Civic Center next to the hotel for our New Years Eve bash. We had dinner, drinks and danced until midnight. We counted down the last seconds of 2005 and toasted campaign while confetti floated down from the ceiling. I wish everyone a great 2006. We miss the kids and hope to be home soon.

The day started early. We woke up at 5:00 a.m. and Marci and Chuck drove us to DFW Airport at 5:30 a.m. There was a long line at the curb side check-in, but we got through it and into the airport in plenty of time. The flight was rough at the beginning, but smoothed out after the first hour. I don’t understand why so many people carry their luggage onto the plane and then try and store it in the over head bins. Just check it in. Are they afraid they are going to lose their luggage? Anyway, we arrived at LAX Airport at 9:00 a.m. PST. It was a three hour flight, but we lost two hours crossing two time zones.

It took forever to get our bags at baggage claim. Maybe those people who carry their luggage onto the plane have a good idea. We caught a shuttle from LAX to our hotel in Pasadena. The smog was pretty think over Los Angeles, but it was cool to see around the city with the Hollywood hills in the background. The city looks pretty trashy. There seemed to be graffiti all along the freeway. Jennifer refused to look forward and kept looking out the side because our driver kept swerving while he was messing with his cell phone.

We got to the hotel in one piece and got our hotel room. It’s on the first floor and has stairs walking down to where the bed is. So, it has a pretty tall ceiling, which makes the room feel a whole lot bigger. We checked in with our tour and received our tickets to the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl. We are sitting in section 23, row 31. It’s on the corner of one of the end zones. For the parade we are sitting in one of the grand stands right after the first turn of the parade.

We explored around downtown Pasadena and then went to a reception for the tour. We met some other Longhorn fans, some older ladies some of whom are faculty at the University of Texas’s Nursing School. It was nice visiting with them and they offered to give us a ride to the Longhorn Bash on Tuesday.

Today’s picture is a surprise we had when we opened up one of our luggage. Emily had stowed away! Actually, this was from last week. One day Emily fell asleep in one of the suitcases while taking a nap.

We spent the past week in Houston with Jennifer’s parents and had a great time. At one point, we went into Clear Lake and looked at our old apartment and ate at one of our old favorite restaurants, Han’s Mongolian BBQ. One day we met George and Heather at The Melting Pot and caught up with the year’s past events while eating. On Christmas Eve, I went with George to Reliant Stadium to see the Houston Texans take on the Jacksonville Jaguars. Up until the end of the third quarter I thought the Texans might actually have an upset in the works, but they completely fell apart and lost pretty poorly.

When I got back from the game we went over to Christina and Mike’s in order to open presents. There were a ton of presents and Abby and Emily helped distribute them. After that, it was time to head home and go to sleep so that Santa Claus could show up. Abby was very concerned and made us remove some bells that were hanging over the chimney as well as move the sofa so that Santa wouldn’t bump into them. In turns out that Santa had dirty boots and left tracks for a couple of steps as he left the chimney.

The day after Christmas we got up early and headed to Lindale to my Grandparent’s house where my family was meeting to open our Christmas presents. There was another ton of presents to open, but the kids plowed through them. We stayed the night and then headed to Shreveport leaving Austin in the care of MaMaw and PaPaw.

We stayed in Shreveport for a couple of days and then left the kids with my parents and borrowed my mom’s car today and headed to Dallas for the first day for our Tournament of Roses Tour. Abby was sad to see us go and was crying, while Emily was running after the car yelling, “Bye, Mommy! Bye, Daddy!” We will miss them. We drove three hours to my Aunt and Uncle’s house where we went out to eat Chinese food with them and my cousin Kevin and his wife Christie. We finally got to see their “new” house (they’ve been in it for a year and a half, but this is the first time we’ve seen it, so it’s new to us). It was really nice and well decorated. We are now gearing up for our flight in the morning to Los Angeles.

We’ve been apprehensive to leave Isabelle with a baby sitter so young. We had the bright idea the other day that we could just go out after 8:00 p.m. once all of the girls are in bed and just hire the baby sitter to be in the house and she wouldn’t have to do anything. Isabelle has been going to bed around 7:30 – 8:00 and then she’s out for the night. So, tonight Jennifer and I escaped to The Melting Pot, our favorite “going out” restaurant. It was nice to get away from the girls and we are going to try and make this a regular event.