Hey everybody, sorry about the really long delay between posts. In case you hadn't heard I was in Seattle for the last month. I decided to surprise my family back around Thanksgiving. I flew home on December 7th and surprised my mom on the 8th, the day my dad died last year. I heard that she had to put Indy down and was pretty down both about that and the anniversary of my dad's death, so I decided to do something to cheer her up. I filled the kitchen with balloons, all in my dad's favorite color, lime green, and then about 20 people came over and my face was on Skype (video chat on the computer) and I was sitting upstairs in front of a white wall so she didn't know where I was. Then when she got home she saw the surprise party commemorating the one year anniversary of "Dancing in Heaven," my dad always said his last year that he was, "dancing on the edge of heaven." I talked with my mom on Skype for a few minutes and then excused myself and walked downstairs into the kitchen. She screamed when she first saw me, it was pretty funny. So for the most part I just hung out with my family when I was home, we went to Yakima for Christmas with my cousins (yeah, I know, the title of this entry is kind of a lie) and then went to Sun Valley for a few days and for New Year's. That was amazing. The weather here has been a big difference from Guatemala, that's for sure. Right now I'm sitting in the President's Club at the Houston Airport because I volunteered to get bumped to a later flight and I get into the President's Club for free. It's pretty classy. Then I get to fly first class the rest of the way to Guatemala and get a $300 Continental Gift Card. Pretty good deal, huh?