Dana Daily

Emily's time at daycare is winding down. It's hard to believe that after 6 years, we are done. Emmy will join Sarah next year at St. Ursula's. I completed her Ready-K registration packet this morning. In May she'll have a chance to attend Move-Up day for a taste of what will come next year. She's already comfortable with the school and knows her future teachers because Sarah went through the same program. It will be wonderful having the girls at the same school again.

Sal and I are working on our "stories" and I will post it in the future. I was completely taken by surprise. Here's where it all happened: Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland

The girls wanted to get Sal a princess cake, but I thought maybe The Avengers was a better choice. When I was buying the cake, the cashier said, "awwww, how old is the birthday boy?" She wasn't sure what to say when I told her 42. The girls and I gave Sal a sock monkey tie, in red, for him to wear to his Christmas concert next week. I also gave him a coupon book from datevitation.com. Such a cute concept and he loved it. Basically you choose a few dates from a few hundred options from the website and they are printed into a book format. I bought 12 coupons and told him he is only allowed to redeem 1 per month. For example, one is for a mini-golf date, another is to order take-out and watch a movie at home, my favorite is a baseball game. We also took Sal to Max and Erma's for dinner, a restaurant he had never been to, even though it originated in Ohio. I meant to order cookies for dessert, and completely forgot. That was a bummer. Then we...

Everyone should have received their Christmas cards by now. I have a rule about not mailing them until at least December 1, but I broke it this year. As a way to avoid doing school work back in October, I addressed the cards. However, I actually had the pictures in August. I had free prints expiring at Shutterfly so I went ahead and used them for the Christmas card pictures. Waiting to mail them until the end of November took a lot of restraint. It's safe to say ours is probably the first you received this year. We hope you enjoy.

Greetings from the Christmas Story house in Cleveland. Sal and I spent some time seeing sights in northeast Ohio for our one year anniversary. The Christmas Story house was our first stop where I bought a desk top leg lamp. We also went to the James A. Garfield house in Mentor, which I loved. If you have the chance, make sure you take the tour. The library is amazing. We also went to the symphony and a Steelers / Browns game. Let's not discuss the final score. It was brutal. We certainly pack a lot into a short amount of time. The past year was a blast and I cannot wait to see what 2013 has in store for us.