We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

December seemed to fly by incredibly fast for me. Spending a full week in GA and serving as the host of Christmas Eve this year, I didn't have a minute to spare! Everything went off without a hitch though.

This year I truly had more fun in giving than in receiving. We definitely splurged on gifts this year but it was really worth it to see all of the smiling faces as our loved ones opened their gifts.

We did the usual running around. We saw my mom's side of the family on Saturday night, had my dad's side over here for Christmas Eve and spent Christmas day with my in-laws.

My husband surprised me on Christmas morning with an authentic 1985 Ozzie Guillen White Sox jersey.

(For those of you who don't know, Ozzie was always my favorite. When he was playing shortstop for the Sox I got to meet him in person. I was about 10 years old and got to go on the field before a game at the new park. I had been collecting Ozzie's cards forever. When he approached me and my dad, my dad said "Hey Ozzie - here's your biggest fan." Ozzie said "Hey sweetie I'm your biggest fan too. And then I got my first kiss (on the cheek of course), a Polaroid picture, and Ozzie gave me his wristband - which I still have. I also have every Ozzie card ever printed thanks to my Godfather who put the book together for me.)

Anyway, I got the jersey, some amethyst earrings and some ornaments for the tree. It was a good Christmas!

Of course no Christmas would be complete without another trip to the vet. Upon arriving home from GA on the 18th, Bam Bam went back in for a cough/collapsing trachea problem. He is now on antibiotics, prednazone, and anti-cough pill, and a bronchial dilator pill. The Friday before Christmas (just 4 days later) we were back in with Belfry who is apparently suffering from Colitis - Now at mealtime we have the pleasure of putting together the doggy drug cocktails. Wow - I really need to look into that insurance!

Here are some pictures from this Christmas. Enjoy them! And have a great New Year!

How's work going?

Well I am glad you asked. I spent a whole week in Georgia working on both some end of the year business as well as some plans for the new year. If you know me you know I am a bit of a "work-a-holic" and that I love my job. You may also know that Wilson-Gray Inc. has been in the process of changing our name since the Gray half of the business left earlier this year. We decided to change the name of the company to Canton Street Inc. While we will continue to recruit in the moving & storage industry, 2007 will become a spectacular year in terms of growth. Not long ago we added a business brokerage division. With this service we confidentially list moving companies for sale and find buyers for those listings. It has become such a success that we are now adding other divisions. I myself will continue to specialize in the recruiting division. Additionally I will be working on making some significant changes to our company website and newsletter. We've added the domain www.canton-street.com but still need to edit all of the content. (We are working on that as I type.) It was great to see everyone and I enjoyed my time in Georgia. I even looked at a house while I was there. The weather was beautiful too. Here you can see the Recruiting Division at Canton Street Inc. :)



While in GA one of my favorite clients invited me to their Christmas breakfast. It was wonderful to meet everyone in person.



This time of year I am reminded once again how Thankful I am to be working for such a class-act company where I have plenty of room to grow personally and professionaly. I am continually reminded of how lucky I am to be where I am.

If you have a chance, check out www.canton-street.com and especially check out the newsletter section!

Greetings from Roswell, GA

Hey everyone. I am in GA for work this week. I actually had a plane ticket but I decided to cancel it and drive here. It wasn't a bad drive. Since my office is in Roswell, I didn't actually have to go all the way down through Atlanta. Roswell is about a half hour north of Atlanta. I left on Sunday morning at about 5am and I arrived here at about 4pm that same day. Considering the time change, it was about a 10 hour drive. It was a really nice relaxing drive though. The scenery was beautiful. There was absolutely no traffic and I didn't get lost at all. My super fuel-efficient car, required only 20 gallons of gas for the trip, so it was a pretty cheap venture. I stopped for gas in Austin, IN and in Murfreesboro, TN. Other than that, I just kept the pedal to the medal...hehe.

As usual, it is beautiful here in Roswell. We recently moved into a bigger office and I just love that too. We are in this old log cabin from the 1800s and now have the main floor with basically 4-5 rooms in it. There are 3 fireplaces in our office! It is so unique. I love being here. The temperature is in the mid 60s so that is a nice change from the freezing Chicago weather we have been getting. There is a lot of work going on this week. Today I was in the office for 13 hours. But, that's the whole point of us all getting together in one place - to get things done. I have a s-l-o-w internet connection at the hotel, so that's enough positing for now. I will post more later when I have a better connection.
Bye!

Deck the halls....and the walls, the roof, the trees, and the yard!

We started decorating during the long Thanksgiving weekend. It ended up taking us a LOT longer than we thought because we had some MAJOR issues with the pre-lit tree. We bought this giant tree at the end of the year last year since we thought we were getting an awesome deal. Unfortunately when we plugged it in this year, only half the lights were working. After spending about 6 hours testing each light, replacing burnt out bulbs, testing the circuits - we had gotten no where. We had to tear off the pre-it lights and put on our own. Here you can see pictures of the final product- the tree all decorated, the manger scene that my granpa made by hand before I was born, a little Christmas village, the lights and decorations outside our house and some of our favorite ornaments. Some of the ornaments are new this year and some I have had for the past few years. And then there are those that have been in my family since before I was born. It was a treat to put each one up and remember where it came from. We love the way the whole tree looks all lit up at night. We hope to keep adding to our ornament collection over the years. Maybe some day we will be one of the houses on the house walk!

Beecher's Holiday Housewalk

This year I went on Beecher's Third Annual holiday Housewalk with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. It was REALLY fun. I had such a great time. There was a mixture of older houses and newer houses and it was really nice to look at all of the Christmas decorations. There were 7 houses on the walk this year. You can see some of the pictures from the housewalk below. Every house had several trees plus other decorations all over the place. I loved the ceiling fan with the branches of ornaments coming out of it, the collection of santas, the trees covered in collections of ornaments, and the garland hanging from all the light fixtures. One of the older homes had beautiful stained glass transom windows and a huge beautiful dining room. Here is just a handful of some of the beautiful things we saw on the housewalk. We will definitely be going again next year!

Silly Puppies

Yes I am one of those people that chases my dogs around with a camera all the time...but they really seem to love it! hehe.