I can't wait until I can drop this whole pretense with the kids about Santa. Hiding the Christmas presents from them is easy right now because they still think Santa is going to bring them in just over a week. But deceiving your kids into believing that there's no such thing as Santa Claus just seems wrong.

I've only got three more days left at work this year, then it's goodbye until 2007. I think that next year I'm going to take much more time off during the summer, because the days I've taken off this winter have been very unproductive. I didn't work this Monday, and I don't work tomorrow, and I've got nothing to show for it. At least during the summer, I'd have been able to do something better with my time. Michael being in school complicates things a bit because the entire family can't take off for a week this time of year without him getting behind.

I hope to get out and do some hiking this weekend. There's an area of Cedar Mountain that, judging by the aerial photos, looks like it might be fun to explore. I think I'm going to bring my rock hammer and do some fossil hunting. I'll be in the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation, which is known to hold some dinosaur fossils. I doubt that I'll have any luck finding anything, but the solitude should be nice for a change. It looks as though the weather might not be nice, but hiking while it's heavily overcast and snowing is one of my favorite things to do.