Ben and Jenelle DOT COM

To start off 2006, we celebrated on New Year’s Eve with the other two couples from our small group. In the top picture are (from left): Mary, Steve, Jenelle, Janet, and Jamie. I’m in the bottom picture, and I happen to be wearing a new shirt. This is a shirt that I got in exchange for one of the shirts in the now famous BenCam poll. 🙂

We had a great time! Jenelle made chicken something-or-other that had fresh mozzarella and prosciutto on it. Mary brought a salad, and Janet brought appetizers and champagne. Though there were quite a few memorable moments, and here’s a few:
1) We tried to play a game of Outburst. I’d like to think that we were pretty good at it, but the fact that the game was many years old made it tougher than it should have been.
2) We had chocolate lava cake for desert. Very yummy.
3) We had three kinds of noisemakers, leis, and three different kinds of party hats. 🙂

Finally, I’d like to send greetings to two people who celebrated birthdays on Friday the 6th:

Happy Birthday, Pam!
Happy Birthday, Aunt Nancy!

I’ve already got two photo albums up:

Comande Christmas 2005 – Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa’s is always a thrill.
Christmas Day 2005 – More fun with the “immediate” family.

More on the way after tomorrow’s celebration!

So, Jenelle and I still haven’t perfected the art of getting all of the Christmas stuff done on time. We bought our last present yesterday evening, and we’re just now putting out our online Christmas letter. We’re also sending out about 65 cards, which are going in the mail today. Which, unfortunately, means that some of you who are traveling for the holidays won’t have them until you get back. Oops. There’s always next year, right? 🙂

In other news, we should have posted this on Sunday: Happy Birthday, Sarah! Sarah was the maid of honor at our wedding, and she ran the Chicago Marathon in 2004. She also has her own web page.

Let’s start off with this annoucement (a day early): Happy Birthday, Andrew!

I went to a number of stores today to buy Christmas gifts and a couple of things for myself. Three somewhat interesting events occurred:

• The lady in front of me in the checkout line at Best Buy attempted to buy two $20 gift cards and four $15 gift cards (for a total of $100). Her form of payment was a card that said “Best Buy Store Credit” on it. Suprisingly, the cashier informed her that she couldn’t use store credit to buy gift cards. Why not? It’s still store credit, isn’t it? Is there some kind of loophole I’m not saying that would allow someone to profit from this?
• The fitting room at Dick’s Sporting Goods is huge. It’s also in the middle of the store — surrounded by merchandise hung on very high walls.
• The person in front of me at another store paid by check. The cashier said, “I’ll need to see a driver’s license.” I noted that cashier wasn’t specific about whose driver’s license she wanted to see. The guy behind me also noticed, and we simultaneously opened our wallets and said, “Here’s one.”

Jenelle also went on a shopping trip today, but I’ll let her tell you about that.

Head on over to the movies page, or just use this direct link to watch a movie I put together using the footage that Jenelle took during my run in Seattle. It’s about 10 megabytes, so it might take a little while to load.

THANKS to everyone who has voted in the poll and/or submitted comments regarding where I should run my next marathon. I wonder who voted for Houston — Todd, was that you? 🙂

A milestone birthday for my cousin on Dec. 3: Happy 21st Birthday, Amanda!