Imanuel’s first Christmas holiday season was spent doing of a lot of traveling.  We’re not exactly sure how much he appreciated it, but as his parents, at least it was nice to see many of our good friends getting to know and spending time with the baby.  Imanuel met some of them for the first time like Jeannie, super-imo-Liz, Michelle, Ellen, Steve, James, Linda, Andy, Ellen, Stephen, Sang, Alistair…and the list goes on.  We want to make sure as much as possible that our baby grows up knowing all of his uncles and aunties.   
On Sunday, December 24th, we drove “downstate” (that’s what people up here call it) to Judy’s parents’s house in Novi.  We got there by evening time (~9 hour drive) and spent Christmas with them.  We went golfing for the first time.  We had fun…making fun of Israel.  HAHA, jk.  It was a lot of fun.  On the 26th, we left for Baltimore for GYC.  It was a lot of fun and we were blessed by the messages.  You can watch some of the messages from this year at this link.  Hopefully the GYC website will be updated to include these messages as well. 
On Sunday, December 31st, we flew back to Detroit with the Pipims, missionaries, Sebastien, Amy, Stephanie, Jeffrey Rosario, and others.  It was also a special day because it was Auntie Stephanie’s 24th birthday!  Our flight ended with the stewardess making a special birthday announcement.  Then we were back to Novi at Judy’s parents’s house.  Stephanie came home with us too!  We watched the ball drop and that was pretty much it.  We were so tired so we went to bed.  (Although, Stephanie and Judy ended chatting in bed for ~1 hour or so).  Uncle Justin shared his room with Imanuel which was nice (except for the time when he came into the room and woke the baby up).  Uncle Justin’s girlfriend, Esther, was over too.  The next few days were spent “making an investment for Stephanie’s future”, making a couple visits to Ann Arbor for meetings and to pick up some stuff, and we did end up half-watching “Free Willy”…that’s Uncle Justin’s favorite movie and he was having withdrawls after years of not watching it.  We were playing “yoot-noh-rhee” at the same time.  We watched two documentaries which we would recommend – “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Deadline”.  And, our trip ended with exciting news.  Uncle Justin’s article was on the cover of “Michigan Memo”, the Michigan Conference newsletter.  Now he is officially published!  HAHA. 
Now, we’re back at home and it’s been nice settling again.  The sad part is that we still have Christmas presents/cards to send out.  We’re running tardy.  Hopefully by this week, that will be taken care of. 
Here are some pictures from our trip!!

Houghton SDA at GYC 2007.  Bjorn, Idaliza, Judy & Israel (Immi is down for bed.)

Getting a ride from Uncle Justink.

Meeting his Uncle Steve!

Back at Novi home with G-ma.

Hanging out with the grams…

Grandpa going to extreme measures (wearing Grandma’s hairpin) to bribe Imanuel to go to him.

Esther and Justin

Israel and birthday girl, Stephanie

Happy belated holidays!