December 19, 2010 - Christmas is almost here:)

Hey there, hi there and a Merry Christmas hello to you:) A special happy birthday goes out to Nicolasa on her December birthday, can't wait to celebrate with you later this week! Also, this week marks Jenny, Caden and my initial adventure to drive back to Iowa ... yes, DRIVE back to Iowa ... which hopefully will only take 16 hours!!

The past couple weeks of new responsibilities at work have taken me away from my ability to have good 1v1 time with the team, so hopefully I can pick that up again after the New Year. Some of the new projects I'm getting some exposure on are pretty fun, so we'll see how everything shakes down. I love this time of year at work though because we get to look back on everything that we've done, sit back, relax (maybe for 15 minutes) and celebrate all the success.Had a great Leading Change seminar this week and a fun division wide luncheon. In addition to the fun, our team sponsored the 3rd annual PIC team canned food drive where we exceeded our 550 can total last year and nearly hit 800 with 799 cans accounting for 750 pounds of food for a local shelter ... made us feel pretty darn good:)

Had some fun volunteer action over the last couple of weeks with a half day YP board retreat to chat about our 2011 plans. Also had our nice United Way 2010 volunteer committee wrap up with some tasty soup and great discussion about our 2011 Live United Youth Camp, which is going to be quite exciting! Then, the Literacy Alliance is having our budget wrap up and planning for all our 2011 activities, on a slim budget of course. Sounds like there is a lot of not for profit planning going on, now it's time for the fun part ... executing the plan!!

We've had lots of parties with friends over the last couple of weeks, ending in one amazing Dirty Chinese Elephant gift exchange with the SIFE crew. After some Networks & Organization class up at Emory, I met up with the guys for a weekend in the wilderness (as seen in the pictures this week). After picking up some double cheeseburgers, ya ... really hoofin' it you could say, I hiked with some pals into the night for a sleepover in the woods. A wonderful fire and great guy time was had by all nine of us. This morning brought about a seven mile hike back to reality and the comforts of indoor plumbing;)

Welp, just a few more days until the voyage back home and Jenny, Caden and I can't wait to see everyone ... fingers crossed for decent driving weather!!

Alwayz,

nate