Drew's 2013 Christmas Letter

The day was November 9, almost three full weeks before the Thanksgiving Holiday even took place, when I opened up the trunk of our car and discovered it was crammed full of Christmas decorations. I thought to myself, “surely Amanda plans on storing these decorations in here until after Thanksgiving.” I discovered how wrong I was moments later when my dear wife, with a look of holiday-induced fanaticism on her face, anxiously informed me that we had to hurry up and get the decorations up post-haste and while I’m at it I better get started on our annual Christmas letter. “Geez” I thought to myself, “how can I start our Xmas letter when there are still practically two months left until Xmas and a lot could happen between now and then –  like I could get a motorcycle and take it on a cross-country trip to Seattle where I would trade it for a small sailing skiff which I would use to sail across the ocean to Tahiti where I would trade it for a surfboard and become famous for surfing the biggest wave ever.” I was about to express these concerns to Amanda when I looked into her big beautiful blue eyes and became acutely aware that if her eyes could speak they would say something along the lines of, “I dare you to argue with me, chump.” “Yes dear, I’ll get started right away” I said. You learn a lot in your first year of marriage.

 

And it has been a great first year. First and foremost, Amanda graduated and received her Master’s degree in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota. Her program was very grueling and stressful and when it was completed we not only celebrated her great accomplishment, but the fact that she would be able to live a normal life again. I wish I was able to tell you more about what she studied, but the extent of my knowledge concerning the intricacies of applied economics is that it involves some impossible form of mathematics brought to Earth by space-aliens in an attempt to make our puny human heads explode.

 

While Amanda was advancing her career opportunities by becoming more educated, I was trying to strike it rich with a new business venture I learned about on the backstreets of St. Paul. It’s called Pedal Cabbing (or bike taxis if you prefer). Basically, I ride a bike with a giant bench seat around town and try to pick up people that are too inebriated to walk. The “striking it rich” part hasn’t quite come to fruition like one would imagine it would, but it has been good exercise and entertaining to say the least.

 

We also got a new dog named after the Norse god of mischief, Loki. So far he has lived up to his name. His favorite game is stealthily breaking into our closet to steal our socks. I don’t appreciate this game as much as he does because I am already perpetually suffering from a severe shortage of socks. Our dog trainer told us to put hot-sauce on the socks in an attempt to deter this behavior, but I don’t like this either because the hot sauce burns my feet. I think the secret is to not wear the socks.

 

We also did a bit of traveling this year. Most notable would be our trip to Nova Scotia. Why Nova Scotia you ask? Well, we saw it on the cover of a magazine once and it looked nice. What other reason do you need, really? It turned out to be a great trip. We kayaked through uncomfortably large swells in the Bay of Fundy and camped in secluded coves right on the ocean; we boiled fresh lobster in the very saltwater from whence it came; we went whale-watching on a Zodiac raft that went 10,000 nautical miles-per-hour and when the maniacal captain wasn’t doing his best to launch us out of the raft we got so close to the whales that I could have dropped a marble right down their blowhole; we had a close encounter with a giant bull moose; and we met amazingly nice people who were more than eager to invite complete strangers (us) to their homes to help ourselves to their woodpile. In the end, we did not want to bid farewell to Nova Scotia.

 

There was also a little trip down to Charleston, South Carolina with our younger sister, McCayla. We took the trip because Amanda can do space-alien math and some other smart people wanted to hear her speak about smart stuff at a big conference for smart people down there. While Amanda was hanging out with those nerds, McCayla and I hit up the beaches. The first day on the beach I did some surfing and some sun burning. McCayla did some tanning and some laughing at my freakishly red skin. The following days McCayla continued to do some tanning while I hid from the sun underneath fishing piers like some grotesque ghoul muttering in the shadows about how much I loathed everyone with bronze skin. When Amanda was done with the conference we all had a good time paddle-boarding with dolphins, playing in the waves, touring a “haunted” Civil War era prison, and generally enjoying Charleston’s old-south charm.    

 

We did some other stuff too, but I won’t bore you with those details. Okay, maybe just a little. The Alaskan Imes’ made their way down to the Lower 48, so we enjoyed time spent with them. We were also blessed with a new nephew, Lane. He is a real cool dude, but I will let his folks, Bonnie and TJ, tell you more about him. What else? Oh yes, we started a book club in which we meet with friends to have very loud, ultra-dorky conversations about the books we read. As for the future, I will be coaching a snowboard team again this winter and Amanda will continue to rock out in her new band, Adults on Bikes. We still work together at the Minnesota Department of Revenue because we just can’t get enough of each other. Who knows, maybe I can even convince her to jump on the back of that motorcycle with me. We’ll be in Tahiti in no time.

 

---Merry Christmas to you and all your loved ones Drew and Amanda Imes