This year, my office holiday party was held at the Georgia Aquarium -- and I mean the WHOLE Aquarium (we had the whole thing to ourselves, which was pretty darn cool.  Instead of a sit-down dinner like usual, it was heavy appetizers, and instead of a band, like usual, it was a DJ.  The unfortunate thing was that there really weren't a lot of seats, and with Cheryl as pregnant as she was, she needed to sit down frequently and seats were hard to find.

The Georgia Aquarium has just been open for about a year, and neither Cheryl nor I had been there yet.  It's currently the largest aquarium in the world!  I give it that -- it's definitely large.  It is worth seeing if you're in Atlanta, too, but in my opinion, though large, it's not the nicest aquarium I've been to.  Cheryl and I agreed that we even liked the Tennessee Aquarium better.  I think Chicago's is a really cool design, and the one on Maui, although tiny in comparison to Georgia's, I also enjoyed more.  Here are just a couple pictures of Cheryl (very pregnant) and I at the aquarium:

 

Next, just a couple pictures from Sheila and Michael's annual Christmas party.  Wow has it changed over the years.  It was almost dominated by kids this year....which is cool because I always thought Christmas was more about kids than adults anyway.

Cheryl & Jennifer	Irrefutable evidence of the presence of kids. ;-)

 

For Christmas Eve, we went out with Cheryl's mom (Pat), sister (Laura), brother-in-law (Matt) and their two kids (Ryan, 3¹/2 & Maddie, 8 mos.) for dinner at The Melting Pot.  Yum! 

Laura & Maddie	Maddie & Straw
Ryan & Laura	Ryan, Laura, Maddie, Matt (and the server....and steam)
Cheryl and Me	Ryan Laura & Maddie
Ryan enjoying the chocolate fondue dessert in his own way.	Maddie & Pat

 

Christmas afternoon, Cheryl and I went over to her sister's where her mom had been since morning.  We opened our presents and those her brother sent from Florida, and had a delicious dinner that Laura and Matt cooked.

Opening presents... Maddie loves the bag!	Ryan wondering what he got.	More opening.
Maddie heading for Ryan's train cars.	Matt showing Maddie a new toy of hers.	Ryan opening up a giant tootsie-roll package.
Nope!  Not a tootsie-roll. It's Lincoln Logs!	Maddie heading for me.	Checking with mom.
	Short VIDEO of Maddie