Season's Greetings from The Nelsons
Ho, ho ho. Merry Christmas 2011 to all ! This was an incredibly exciting year for us, filled with lots of family visits, travel, birth of our first grandchild, hurricaines and changes in Erik's life. Our excitement started last Christmas with a good old fashioned family Christmas at my Mom's place in Washington State. My Mom, sister and her significant other, Graham made the journey down from Seattle, Rob & Kelley came up from California and Erik, Helga & I flew out from the East coast.. Here we are sitting down to Christmas Eve morning breakfast and taking a Christmas Day walk. Erik had some fun getting back into a snowed-in New York, but otherwise it was a fun relaxing trip.

Our holiday mirth was amplified by the beginning of the Packers Super Bowl run which culminated in the actual game at our house w/ fellow cheeseheads, the Johnsons.

Although the Packer's Super Bowl victory was a delirious high, the true highlight of our late winter was the birth of our first grandchild Maddie on February 28; we were able to get to Berkeley for my spring break, so we caught up with Maddie on her 1 month birthday and also got in some Lake Tahoe skiing. Here you see me trying out my grandparenting skills while the happy couple are looking well rested

The big news from late Spring was Erik's attempted career change. Tired of chasing geese (actually more tired of spending all day in traffic), Erik quit his job in NY and moved to the Gulf coast for a temporary job doing bird nesting assessments in the wake of the BP oil spill. Which meant that we got a granddog, Gin to enrich our home life (se below) Helga made it back home to Iceland in May & then Helga's business trip to New Orleans in mid-June meant that we could meet up with him for a day as well as get to know the Big Easy (I had only been there once before for 1/2 a day)

The end of June brought Rob, Kelley and Maddie back home for Maddie's baptism, R &K's anniversary (3 already) and Erik's b-day (26). There were lots of parties and some chances for bonding with Maddie.

The next big event of our summer was a trip to Barbados to visit Erik. After his bird gig in the Gulf gave out, he got a job doing much the same thing, but with sea turtles in Barbados. So, instead of heading to Belize, we decided to vacation in Barbados so that we could hang with E a bit.

The Fall meant Erik moving back home as his Barbados job ended, a trip to Philly for our anniversary, several biking trips and Helga scoring a big promotion to be director of research and development for Fuchs North America.

Finally, Helga's sister Ingibjorg and her husband Gudmundur came to spend Thanksgiving with us and enjoy some beautiful late fall weather in Baltimore.

Rob, Kelley and Maddie are back for Christmas, so it looks to be a wonderful start to the next year.

Hope that this letter finds you together with your loved ones, happy, healthy and enjoying a joyous Holiday Season. Lots of Love from our family to yours, and please, keep in touch.

The Nelsons, Jay, Helga,Erik, Gin, Putty & Sadie: