Christmas Card Message

My daughter and I were working on Christmas cards tonight and I just wrote the standard stuff like Merry Christmas blah blah blah and she compiled this nice little letter that I have decided to post. Here 'tis

Happy Holidays 2004

For all of you who know how much I love to write (and how well I procrastinate) I thought it would be best to take the letter route for Christmas cards, to catch everyone up.
I started the year getting over the shock that I had finally graduated from UNF (a.k.a. U Never Finish) and would not be returning to school in January like I had for the past 20+ years of my life. It wasn’t until October that I got a real job working for JEA. For all of you who don’t have the pleasure of living in Jacksonville, you may not know that JEA is the local utility company. I am an Engineer Technician Trainee for the Commercial and Network Fulfillment Department. I started November 1st so far I enjoy it and look forward to gaining knowledge in the exciting fields of water, sewer and electrical systems.
This past July I bought a one-way ticket to California and ended up staying for six weeks. I had a wonderful time visiting my Dad’s sister’s family out in Palo Alto, south of San Francisco. My first weekend there I helped my Uncle Dan put on a fireworks show in Mountain View for July 4th.
One of my favorite places we visited while I was there was the Point Reye’s National Seashore. For anyone who gets the opportunity to go to San Francisco, I highly recommend spending time at Point Reye’s, it’s just north of the city and on a normal foggy day looks a little like Ireland. My cousins Sarah and Beth had to endure a walk over the Golden Gate Bridge with me while I took pictures of the Bridge from just about every angle possible. They even made me take a picture of a rivet. When I wasn’t wandering around San Francisco, gawking at the Golden Gate or playing with explosive devices, I enjoyed wonderful home cooked meals, sewing and craft projects, plus 6 weeks of cool, humidity-free weather, quite the opposite from the horrible weather during July in Florida.
In addition to traveling to California, this past year I also traveled to Vegas for an Elon wedding. I drove to Greensboro, NC for another Elon wedding, and stopped off in Chapel Hill and Burlington for a visit with cousins and 2nd cousins. I spent a weekend in Columbus, Ohio with girls from Elon. In addition, thanks to one of the major hurricanes, and poor decisions at Delta, took a detour to Lexington, KY to visit with great aunts and uncles. I also took a short trip to Orlando for my cousin’s birthday and stopped off at another Elon girl’s house. Speaking of the Florida hurricanes, I also got the pleasure of riding herd on my brother during the month of September, while my parents were touring Southwest Ireland.
This past Sunday I worked my last shift at Bistro Aix. I planned on working a shift a week after I started JEA. I have since realized the idea was ludicrous and now I am looking forward to 2-day weekends. So other than settling into my new job and my new schedule, I am starting to look into buying a house, probably in the next year. I’m also counting down the days to the Super Bowl, when I no longer will have to hear about it coming.
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas! For all of you non-Jacksonvillians whom I got the pleasure of seeing this past year it was great to see you! For those of you I didn’t get a chance to visit with I hope to see you soon.

Love,
Errnnn

r.m.