The Gang's All Here

Our whole house was in a state of disarray last night as we readied for family pictures. It's a bi-annual event that involves agonizing over the color scheme of the photo, and then getting everyone on the same page, with extra points for fitting pants. This year's smack down was over what shade of red -- fire engine or cranberry -- we were going to wear. Mom won and everything turned out well, despite some last-minute scrambling and shirt swapping. The session inevitably had us getting (very) cosy in the small studio and staying until the Berkshire mall closed (also a tradition). Here are two of my favorites. Until 2012, here's the Patches gang. .

Paris

OK, let's summarize my life right now.

A year and a half ago, after graduating from Biola University with a degree in journalism, I finished up an internship and headed east to South Korea. I taught English outside of Seoul and had the time of my life living abroad, eating exotic food and meeting incredible people.

I planned to move to Mexico for six months with my best friend, but things took a turn when I got an e-mail from some long lost relatives living in Paris. Right around the time the third baby will arrive, they're moving back to the States and offered to pay for my ticket out to help them out for a few months. After thinking about it, rolling a dice and consulting bird signs, I decided I couldn't turn down a free trip to Europe. So I'm going for 4.5 months, come mid-February, to the country of style and fashion. Continuing my love affair with beautiful churches, I'm intensely anticipating seeing Notre Dame and soaking in as much European architecture as possible. This prolongs my longterm job hunt -- again -- but to all you people working the 9-5 grind, I say, "See ya, suckas!"