Happy New Year

So, I am not sure what my problem is, but I am a little uninspired to write lately. It could be that I feel that our life here has now become "routine" and "average", so I am less inclined to write about it. What more can I write about? We get up, have breakfast, go swimming, surfing or boogie boarding, have lunch, have drinks, eat dinner, go to bed. So, to help me get over my writer's block, I'll lay out the events of the past few weeks in true Nielsen fashion - bullet points, (it's hard to get over what was 10 years of one's life):

• Christmas - was so fun. As you'll see from the pictures, Taylor and Alex awoke to find that Santa had indeed found our house, even without a real tree and a fireplace (as Taylor nervously asked the night before). This Christmas was very simple, with small gifts to each other (which in many cases had been picked out by the receiver). But we had an awesome roast dinner with our family and swam on Christmas Day. Really, what else could we ask for?
• New Years - was alright as well. Okay, so we celebrated it at PST (10pm here), but on Maui, fireworks are the norm and our $34 package from Costco did not disappoint. (That same package would have easily cost $200 at home). The kids loved it and Graham and Neil had a lot of fun setting things on fire and watching them blow up.
• Spanish - it's coming along! I have completed almost 25 lessons (I'm a little behind where I wanted to be), but I think I have all the basics. I just need to expand my vocabulary a little and think a little faster on my feet. Neil always knows when some Spanish speaking people are near that I will be eavesdropping, trying to understand what they are saying...
• Cracked my ribs - nope not falling off my surfboard or getting barrelled - but picking up kids toys out of the tub, slipping and crashing into the side of the tub. So for the past 2 weeks, I've been waiting for them to get better, doing yoga poorly and trying to stay off the boogie board (which is really hard, and inevitably I end up more sore than I was. How do I know they're cracked? Well, it's been 2 weeks, they're not better and it still hurts to breathe deeply. So, surfing is on hold for now since it hurts to lie down on my stomach, which makes paddling impossible.
• Reading - way too much. To the point that I am up late finishing novels because I can't put them down. I can't even tell you how many books I've read this trip - 10 maybe? Some fine, some excellent. Most recent reads that I can remember - Back Roads, The Beach House, The Pilot's Wife. Reading (and fiction) has always been a huge part of my life which has seen little indulgence over the past 5 years. So now, I feed this passion when the house is quiet and everyone else is sleeping. Hell, I'll sleep when I'm old, right?

So, I'll sign off this week, saying Happy New Year - with the hopes that 2009 brings you love, peace and good fortune...