2010 is almost over.  Let’s celebrate an amazing year and welcome in 2011 by having a sale!!!

So if your wanting to book your wedding date with me… now through January 15, 2011.  I have a great deal for you.  What’s the catch?  You have to have your signed contract back by the 15th to get the deal.  What is the deal?  Take 15% off your package price.  Give me a call and let’s get you on the calendar!!!!  870-425-7671

Oh yeah,,, and I love to travel.  So regardless of where you are,,,, let’s talk.

jb

No longer does the mystery and magic of Santa loom large over our holidays.   We’ve reached the point where even our youngest is well aware that Santa lives in the hearts of parents, in the dreams of adults to see children wake up on Christmas morning and wonder what Santa has left for him.  I’ve enjoyed years and years of lying to my children.  Only lying in the sense that Santa was a man from the North Pole…. as Trisha and I have cherished each and every moment of staying up late on Christmas eve, putting together elaborate doll houses, bicycles and countless other items.  We’ve enjoyed being the only two up as we ate the cookies and drank the milk.  We’ve giggled with one another as we stuffed candy and other small items into our kids’ stockings.  That part of Christmas may have changed, but I still plan on staying up with her tonight to keep our time together.  To keep a tradition of enjoying her company as we revel in the fact that we’ve some how made it through another year.  To keep alive the tradition of giggling like little kids as we anticipate the joy on Conner’s, Erin’s, Amelia’s and Ian’s faces in the morning.

One other tradition we kept alive is our Santa Letter Send Off Party.  Some of our closest and dearest friends, the Carter family, came over last weekend with a van full of helium balloons.   By the time they arrived ours had been in my office for a small period of time, being kept warm by the heat from our fireplace, our letter was ready to go.   All eleven of us, kids and parents, walked out into the openness of the field behind our house and set the balloons free.  This year they went straight up.  No wind.  We watched them for what seemed to be an eternity, but was more like five minutes.  Finally they caught a slight breeze,,, hundreds or thousands of feet in the air and we slowly watched them make their way to the southeast…. then they were no longer in sight.

In past years a few of our letters have been found in Alabama, Indiana, Illinois… and one made it as far as the barbed-wire fence a few hundred yards from our house.  It’s always incredible when we get the letter back from some kind person.   In 2006 our letter made it here… Santa Lives In Paris.

Regardless of what you celebrate…. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice or Festivus, I want to wish you a great time with those you love,,, and those who love you.  Tomorrow my family will celebrate Christmas and the greatest gift I’ll receive is the love of my family.

Here are a few photographs from our letter release.

jb

I’m a lucky man.  I have four beautiful, healthy children.  I have one wife who is more beautiful than the day I married her 19 and a half years ago.   I also have 20 Santa Claus ornaments.  I realize that Santa is the very superficial mascot for Christmas, but he is the symbol we chose to add each year.  Our very first Christmas as a married couple was in 1991, and it was that year that we bought our first Santa ornament for our tree.  We’ve added a new one each year.  It is dated so that we can keep track of which one belongs to which year.  Some of our ornaments are nicer than others.  Some are quite modest.  Some years were lean and we could only afford the 99 cent Santa from the local dollar store.  Other years were more prosperous and we could spend more time looking for just the right one.  What has held true each and every year is that Trisha and I have done this together.

This year we purchased Santa #20.  He’s nothing amazing…. other than that he marks the 20th Christmas I’ve celebrated with my wife.  For that he is most special.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY….. AND TO THOSE WHO DON’T REALLY LIKE ME THAT MUCH.

jb

I have been so anxious for this wedding.  One,,, I love Oklahoma City and two…. when I met Ty and Lana,, I fell in love with them.  They are so much fun and are apparently so in love.  They both have personalities that infect you with happiness when you hang around them.  Lana seemed to dance through the entire day…. as did Tyrel.  On numerous occasions you’d look over and one of them would be dancing.  Then… when the reception came they broke loose and the dancing spread like wildfire through the entire  group.

Here are more than a few of my favorite pictures from their wedding.

jb