well, here it is….the moment virtually no one has been waiting for. my 07 christmas card. i’ll apologize in advance for it’s length. we’re pushing 2 minutes and 56 seconds so please do go to the bathroom before sitting down to watch. i’m not sure why it’s so long. i guess i did a lot this year. besides, how often do you talk to me anyway? and this is probably a much more efficient way to keep track of what’s happened to me this year than actually communicating frequently throughout the year would be. 365 days in 176 seconds. not bad when you look at it that way, is it? also, i apologize it isn’t more creative, the writers’ strike has hit us all really hard.
if you’re not gonna click the link, then i will say this. i’m so thankful to all of my friends who have put forth effort to encourage and support me this year. the people who have made the time and had the interest. the people i’ve effectively “done life” with. i am truly blessed beyond anything i deserve (whereas just 4 short years ago i was thoroughly convinced that IIIII was the blessing and was the one getting the shaft on the receipt of blessings). it has been such an amazing year for me, and i thank you for your contributions.
so, CLICK HERE for the link to my video christmas card. hope you enjoy the card as i enjoy you all.
oh, and if you were curious what africa looked like (though the scent is what really stuck with you, and i couldn’t photograph that) or care to see more of what i did this year, you can hit my picasa albums at http://picasaweb.google.com/CharlesBreland/
oh, and here’s just one shot from the year
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lillis and i headed down to the great nation state of satsuma for thanksgiving. lillis was pretty excited to go on the “the real charles, reality tour.” we mostly just hung out at my parents house, though we did head out to the malls, to bellingrath gardens and over to a friends place for the second half of the bama/auburn game (which did not happen). one morning we went for a jog, and i jogged her from my parents house, around my elementary school, past the hosue we lived in when we built our previous house, into saraland, past my middle school and up to my high school. lillis needed to go potty or we would have run past my church as well before returning back. it takes about 9 miles of jogging to cover my entire life. pretty funny stuff, if you ask me.
anyway, here lillis and i smile for mom and dad before heading out to the mall.
the rest of these shots are from our trip to see bellingrath gardens. it was really lovely and wasn’t too cold.
we had a great trip and lillis was a lovely guest. it was nice and relaxing, we ate plenty of good food and got to just “chill out” for a little bit (other than the aformentioned bama game). here’s a link to the rest of the pictures (mostly from bellingrath gardens).
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lillis and i headed down to south georgia to go camping in fdr state park with two other friends (darrell and alice). here we stopped for a team photo while hiking the loop. this required me to balance the camera on a rock and run across some water and hop up on the wall. you can barely tell i’m winded. we hiked about 2 miles in to our campsite and then knocked out a 7 mile loop. it was quite a day
these are leaves. they’re red leaves. it was still fall, so they were in the tree. later they would lie down on the ground for a nap. i know inanimate objects don’t lie (they lay) but i’m using anthropomorphism. hips are something else that don’t lie.
here’s the sestup outside my tent. i brought enough supplies to last us the night. those are mini-beers (or pounders as i was taught to call them in college). usually if a beer was that little, i would throw it back. however, these were so cute, i had to drink them. otherwise i would have to carry them back out. i figured i’d rather be hung over with a lighter load than feeling good but with a heavier pack.
i brought a drawing tablet with me. this is a picture of lillis with granola bars in her hand. however, at the time i drew this, in real life, lillis had already eaten all of her granola bars and most of mine.
here alice holds up a picture i drew of her. it’s safe to say that alice has a mild fear of stepping into cold water, much like gazelles are a little bit scared of cheetahs, except gazelle’s response is flight, and alice’s response is more of a “wait and see” approach to fording streams.
here’s another leaf. i like it
we really had a great time on the trip. it did get a little cold (maybe down to 50 degrees at night) but we served just fine. i had never had the “add boiling water and eat” dinners before. i gotta tell you, they were pretty darned good. darrell got us all set up with the cooking dishes and stove and all. it was a nice night to be out in the woods and was a pretty relaxing and peaceful sleep. thanks to darrell for setting it up, and to alice for entertaining us thoroughly during darrell’s personality profiling game. a good time was had by all. oh, and
here’s a link to more pics from the trip.
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