Well, that keenly anticipated day has come and gone, much to the relief of some of those in our household. Others of us simply focus on the opportunity to play with lots of new toys unfettered by demands such as school.

Some Christmas week highlights included…

Happy Birthday, Jesus! Birthday Cake

Singing happy birthday to Jesus and then enjoying special Happy Birthday, Jesus! Birthday Cake on Christmas Eve. This is possibly my favorite family Christmas tradition.

Christmas with Grammy and Papa

We spent a portion of Christmas Day hanging out at my in-laws’ house. After Benji opened his presents, we played with his new Legos (a really handy set of a variety of multi-colored pieces, perfect for building whatever you want) and pretended to be elements. My in-laws gave Benji a cool lift-the-flap Periodic Table book that will keep the flames of his chemistry passion fanned for some time.

Silverdale Speaker Adventure

The day after Christmas, Ian and I left Benji with my parents all day while we went to Kitsap Audio Video in Silverdale to listen to the SVS SB3000 subwoofer we’ve had our eye on. For reference, getting to Silverdale either involves taking a ferry or driving an hour and a half around the Puget Sound and across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. We ended up doing both — a ferry on the way there, and then going around through Tacoma on the way back. I’ll just say we don’t plan do that trip again any time soon.

However, we spent a good while at Kitsap Audio Video because they were the exact kind of store we were looking for: One run by and staffed with total speaker nerds. They set up the SVS subwoofer for us, and after listening quite a bit, we agreed that it would complement our existing Revel F12 right and left loudspeakers.

Then we talked with them about recommendations for a center speaker and surround speakers to complete our intended 5.1 surround system. They recommended and played for us the Emotiva Airmotiv C2+ and B2, which were on sale for crazy cheap. So we bought those.

I dropped Ian off at home about 3:00 pm and he spent the afternoon setting those up. There’s more equalization to do today, which I think he’ll work on while Benji, Mom, Dad, and I go to Fort Casey.

More Jogging

Meanwhile, I’ve jogged every day this week except Christmas Day. It’s going pretty well. I may’ve done a bit much on Tuesday, because my knee hurt on Wednesday, but a day of rest and it felt fine on Thursday. I’ve been trying to slowly ramp things up. Although I’m not setting any speed records, I’m enjoying pushing myself. My left leg has experienced noticeable muscle soreness, I think due to muscle imbalance between the legs, but no recurrence of the cramping/crippling pain that drove me to have surgery in the first place.

And that, honestly, is the greatest Christmas present I could hope for.