Josh and I had a fun time on our cruise to Mexico, but we did both miss Brianna more than we had expected... it was good to be home after 8 days away.  We got some nice weather, though (it was in the low 80's in each of our three stops) and had a great time on the off-boat trips, and fun doing tons of activities on the ship as well.  We unfortunately forgot our camera, so the memories are all stored nicely in our brains... but that's okay.  Who wants to see pictures without Brie in them anyway?  :)  I have posted some pictures of Christmas at the Custer's.  My mom and brother are in town this week, which has been great for Brianna, and hopefully they are enjoying the nice Arizona weather.  Seems cold for us after the cruise!

While I'm sitting here "studying" for my final, which actually means surfing the internet, I came across an interesting article about the debate over which is better for the environment, real or fake Christmas trees.  Read it and find out for yourself.  I have to say, though, though I love real trees, I am split on which is better for me.  We have a new fake tree that we got last year... the difficulty is that in Arizona the real trees dry out so quickly, which means little pine needles everywhere, especially when the dog hits the tree with his tail (which happens a lot).  Also, they are EXPENSIVE, which means that in the 10 years I will get out of my $50 fake tree (got it on sale at the end of the season last year), I would spend maybe $400 or more on real trees.  I know, I know, you have to spend more to save the environment, but I think I will stick with my fake tree, at least for now.  Maybe when we move somewhere with real trees to cut down, I will go back to real.  Who knows...

Last Sunday, Nov 25, was Brianna's second birthday!  Seems like no time has passed since we were here two years ago, waiting on Thanksgiving day to go into the hospital to have a baby. And here we are, with a walking, talking, toddler on our hands.  We postponed her birthday party so it wouldn't fall on Thanksgiving weekend, so yesterday we had some friends over for a little shindig.  Unfortunately, it rained (of course, in AZ it doesn't rain for months and then when you are planning on having 8-10 children over, it rains.), so we spent most of the time inside.  As you can imagine, it was quite loud, but also really fun for the kids.  I'm posting some pictures, mostly of Brie (sorry everybody else), but there are some of her with her "BFF" Logan... Too bad I didn't catch one of their kisses on film.  I can't wait to embarass her someday with these pics!  :)