Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! These little doggies are trying to convince me they've been nice and not naughty and deserve their Christmas present.



We talked to Quinn briefly yesterday but they had a very busy day, she was a little crabby and didn't want to talk long. She called to show us her Christmas Eve pj's, a tradition I always had for my kids too. It's nice to see the tradition carried on to the next generation.

I also "talked" to Tyler briefly on line. He has been in Bali for 3 days now and says it's beautiful. Can't wait to see the pictures! I'm so glad I got to talk to him for Christmas.



So Merry Christmas and I'll write more later and post lots of pictures.

Feliz Navidad!!

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A Little Bit of White Christmas

I think this is about all we're gonna get. The weatherman is predicting no snow for Christmas this year. We got this last night and I really thought it would be gone by noon today because the day started out with the sun shining. That didn't last long though so take a cloudy day along with cold temps (hovering around 30) and it has stuck around.




We enjoyed a little visit with Quinn but now they have left for the west side of the state to have Christmas with Andy's family. I'm sure Quinn will have a wonderful time being spoiled by all her aunts and uncles and playing with her cousins.

Playing Christmas songs with Mommy and Daddy.

"Helping" Mimi on the computer. She loves dancing to Christmas songs. This is cute, just excuse my singing and all the stuff in the office! She only had a little space to dance in.

She's a multi-tasker, just like her Mimi!! Dance, give the dog his bone, etc.

We have bowling tonight. I think we are still in first place, if not alone then tied at least. I hope we can bowl well tonight!

Tomorrow should be a fairly quiet day just spent around here, finishing up wrapping and then relaxing. We will be here for Christmas day too, just the 3 of us. Then on Monday Quinn, Amber and Andy will come back to have our Christmas here.

We haven't heard from Tyler but assume he's made it to Bali ok. I looked up the weather there and it looks fabulous, with high's in the 80's and lows in the 70's! Can't wait to hear all about his trip.

H found the cord to the camera he took to Korea so I've been able to download those pictures too.

Tyler in the cab on the way to Masan.

Here's one of Tyler's schools.


Tyler in one of his classrooms


A market near Tyler's apartment


Apparently a Korean delicacy? H decided to pass. He'd already eaten enough kimchi by then!


Saying Goodbye


I hope everyone who reads this (all 4 of you) has a very Merry Christmas. I'll take lots of pictures and a try to get some better videos of Quinn for you Tyler! Wish you were here!

Merry Christmas!

Countdown...

Just think, a short week from today Christmas will be winding down. The presents will be open (most of them anyway), the feast will be digesting and some people will be thinking about the after Christmas shopping (NOT ME)!

But in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy this last week leading up to the big day. Last weekend was spent finishing up the decorating,










getting laundry finished up so H could pack for his trip to Korea, some baking for a bake sale at school to benefit a 4th grade student at school whose family needs help paying for the back and forth trips to get him the help he so desperately needs (we raised almost $1,000, by the way) and other Christmas related things.

H got off to Korea just fine and didn't really enjoy his trip much, except for the very end when he got to see Tyler for an evening and a day. He's not a fan of kimchi and said most of the time he wasn't sure what he was eating. I would love to show you some pictures from that trip but at this time I'm unable to locate the cord for the camera to download the pictures and the card won't fit in any of the slots on my computer. Dilemma. Hopefully I'll be able to solve it soon.

This weekend I pretty much spent all weekend baking and decorating cookies for a cookie exchange at school and also to give as gifts to some friends.




I'm trying to remember if I promised myself last year that I wouldn't do t his again. At any rate, I did it but it sure took a lot of time.

I also finished up our annual Christmas letter, addressed and mailed all the Christmas letter/cards and wrapped all of the presents. I still have a few things to do before Christmas. One thing I have planned is getting the pups in for grooming. After all, they need to look good for all those Christmas pictures!
And maybe I'll get a manicure. I could really use one.

H got home this afternoon and he is very jet lagged. Lucky for him he has the rest of the year off from work! I wish I could say the same. Actually we have 3 days of school this week but I'm only planning to work on Monday and Tuesday. Monday will probably be the only day much work is done, and maybe Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon will be devoted to parties and our cookie exchange and then after school we will have our staff party. I am taking Wednesday off (one of those lovely mandatory days where I have to take it off and don't get paid) but I'm not really complaining because, barring any unfortunate delays, we are expecting company Tuesday night! Amber, Andy & Quinn will be driving in for the holidays. They will only be staying here a couple evenings before heading over to the west side to spend Christmas with Andy's family and then will come back here the day after Christmas for a little longer visit. We can't wait because Quinn has a little better understanding of what Christmas is this year and is " 'cited". When you ask her what she wants Santa to bring her all she says is "toys".

I'm sure she'll get her wish! She still won't sit on his lap though. No how, no way! Maybe next year!

One thing we may not get this year is our White Christmas. It's been very unseasonably warm. We've had mostly rain, only a little bit of snow and maybe 2 inches at a time at the most. Last week we had rain and what the weather man was calling "springlike" temps with high's on Thursday in the high 50's. We had so much rain last week that if it had been snow they said we would have gotten 8-10 inches. I'm glad that didn't happen though you will never hear me complain about a snow day!

The pups had a nice weekend thanks to Scott. He took them to the high school field both days. I was up to my elbows in cookies. They appreciated it.



So, the countdown for Christmas is on. I'm promising myself I'm gonna take it easy from here on out. After all, everything's done, right?

Have a good week!

Pain, Suffering and Crappy Weather...

So, Thanksgiving has come and gone. I didn't spend the whole day cooking but we still had plenty to eat. I forgot to buy the ingredients I usually use for our traditional cheeseball but I just happened to have similar ingredients on hand so we didn't have to go without but it still wasn't quite as good as the usual one. The turkey was moist and the rest of the dinner was good.

The rest of the weekend is a bit of a blur to me. I was in a good amount of pain on Friday, Saturday and Sunday on account of that stupid flu shot. My muscle in my arm felt like it was spasming, like when you get a charlie horse in your leg in the middle of the night but I couldn't "walk it off". It got pretty bad. Finally on Monday I decided to take the muscle relaxer during the day, which I hadn't been doing. I slept off and on all day but at least the spasming stopped. Tuesday I went back to work and while I wasn't pain free it wasn't enough to stay home. I had put in a call to the Dr. on Monday but he wasn't in. Tuesday evening he called and after talking to him for a while he determined that the shot had probably hit a nerve since I had some numbness and tingling. He gave me an appointment for Thursday evening but the pain seemed less and less every day so I ended up cancelling the appointment. While I can't say I'm completely pain or numbness free, it mostly feels better with intermittent times of pain and tingling. The muscle still aches from time to time, like right now! Ouch! I'm not sure what the Dr. can really do. I'll give it a couple more weeks and then probably have to seek further treatment, whatever that might be. I'm absolutely sick of it, that's for sure.

There's not much else going on around here. We did wake up to this on Wednesday morning.



When I came home for lunch that day the sun was out and it was gorgeous. It was a wet snow so it stuck to everything.




Since then we've had some sunny days and then rain all weekend. The weekend was absolutely horrid. It was dark gray and rainy off and on all weekend. The snow is all gone now and it feels a bit balmy out this evening. It won't last long as we have colder temps predicted for the week and more snow on the way.

We've started decorating for Christmas. Scott got the outside lights and stuff up last weekend. This weekend H put up the big tree and put the lights on and some of the decorations. I put up the kitchen tree and snow baby tree but haven't decorated them yet. Hopefully I'll get around to that during the week sometime.

I was followed around by two sad little puppies all weekend. They really wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, but it was just too wet out. They had to settle from tome fetch in the living room. We couldn't do that too much either now with the tree up.

So, that's about it. Nothing exciting going on. Maybe next post I'll have some pictures of the Christmas decorations up.


H is so lucky! He gets to go back to South Korea and will get to see Tyler again. I am so jealous! In January it will be 2 years since I've seen Tyler. That's way too long. Hopefully H will take lots of pictures!

Have a good week!

Busy, Tired, Thankful

So last time I wrote we were expecting a visit from our favorite girls, Amber & Quinn. They arrived Tuesday and were only spending that night before they headed over to the west side for a couple days to hang out with Nana and Poppop. What started out as an everyday morning ended up being quite scary and then something we were all so thankful for.

While Amber was getting ready to load up her things for the drive Wednesday morning she dashed into the bathroom to grab something which is right next to the staircase and the next thing she knew she heard Quinn tumbling down the stairs. By the time she looked down the stairs all she saw was Quinn trying to sit up. What followed was quite scary and I don't really want to write about the details because I don't want us to have to relive it but I will say right now that everything turned out just fine, thank God! A visit by 8 burly men (combo of fire, ambulance, rescue & Sheriff's office) resulted in a ride in an ambulance just to have her checked out since Amber wasn't sure if she had hit her head or what she had hit. I met them in the ER and after what seemed like forever (it was about 3 hours total) and a CAT scan it was determined that her head was fine and she had probably just knocked the wind out of herself. Scary, scary stuff for all concerned. Quinn took it all in stride and just wanted her MILK!!! And before I'm chastised by any interested bystanders, YES, we went out and bought a baby gate and learned a very valuable lesson and thankfully everything turned out ok.

Last Friday night was bowling and Amber and Quinn joined us at the bowling alley for an hour or so. Quinn met lots of new people and had fun cheering for her Grandpa and Mimi. We bowled Bill & Judy's son and daughter-in-law (their partners were absent) and while we hated to kick their butts, we had to! We were in a three way tie for first place. We ended up taking all four points and actually bowled 3 800+ games which we have never done before! It was a good night and thankfully Bill and Judy's son and daughter-in-law didn't hold it against us.

The next morning we got up and got ready to go to the greatest show on earth, the circus!! H managed to snag us some tickets to the suite and we were the only ones in there! We got there early so we could walk around down with the performers. We even got to see an Elephant up close!


Quinn was really excited to see that.

We weren't sure how long we would be able to stay as we didn't know how long her interest would hold out but she managed to make it the whole time! I think the cotton candy helped her make it through.

Her favorite acts were the elephants and the tigers. Mine too!










Sunday we took the pups to the park and Quinn really enjoyed that.






She ran for a solid 20 minutes while they played frisbee.


H and I took Monday off and we all, even Scott, went to a Cider Mill and what was billed as a petting farm. I think that's a very losely used term when all you have is 4 very aggressive sheep and some chickens! We bought some yummy doughnuts, some apples and cider and then headed to lunch.

Scott and Quinn, about to get up close and personal with one of those friendly sheep!


She was a bit perplexed about why exactly we wanted her to sit on this pumpkin. Never did get a smile out of her!



This chicken tried to take a bite out of Quinn's doughnut! Mama thought that was pretty funny!



Finally! She thought it was pretty funny when she was sitting on these pumpkins!

Amber and I managed to get some serious shopping done while she was here. I had a 30% off coupon from Kohls! I've only had 3 of those in all the years I've shopped there! I'm almost done shopping for Christmas for Quinn and even managed to pick up a couple other things.

All too soon it was time for Amber and Quinn to leave us. H took Tuesday afternoon off and drove them to the airport. I had to come home from school at lunch to say my good-byes. It's always so quiet after they leave. The house seems empty.

We had a wonderful visit, full of fun and a couple new experiences for Quinn, most good, one not so much.

The rest of the week was a blur of work and the usual stuff. I went to the grocery store on Wednesday and decided on impulse, after hearing an announcement on the loudspeaker, to go ahead to the pharmacy and get my flu shot. Usually it's no big deal, no pain, but this one hurt from the second she stuck the needle in. It hurt the whole time I walked around finishing up my shopping. And it still hurts 4 days later. The night I got it I woke up at 3 in the morning with my arm killing me! She must have hit the muscle or a nerve or something. I'm still having to take pain killers every 4-5 hours and I've used a heating pad on it a couple times, which seems to help a little. I just better not get the flu! I'll really be pissed if that happens!

Yesterday I went out to the garden to plant some garlic. You plant it in the Fall like you would tulips or daffodils. I was the only one out there and it doesn't look like many people cleaned their gardens out and no one spread manure like we did. Hopefully the garlic will have a nice sleep and will grow well next spring and summer. I tried to grow some garlic in my front flower bed last year but it didn't do well. Hopefully this will do better. I'm only getting one plot next year so I'm going to have to be very selective in what I plant.

Speaking of planting, yesterday I also made some broccoli cheese soup with broccoli from the garden. It was just ok. I have never seemed to be able to master soup making, no matter what kind I try. It never tastes as good as Campbells. I think they have some kind of secret ingredient I don't know about.

Today I'm making bread with olive oil and Rosemary. I brought some Rosemary from the garden yesterday. It was in the main garden and no one harvested it and it will die over the winter so I figured I might as well "save" it! I pulled mine up and have it in a pot in the kitchen windowsill. That way I'll have fresh Rosemary during the winter, if I can keep it alive!

The pups went to the high school field both days and were so happy to get out. Zoe "screamed" most of the way on the drive over. Today Scott took them so he got to listen to the rukus!


The leaves are all off the trees now and the bird feeders are being emptied almost as fast as I fill them.



Speaking of bird feeders, the first hillbilly security system didn't make the grade. Those smart suckers had it down on the ground the next morning. H thought it was just a fluke so he hung it back up and sure enough, the next morning it was down again. Back to Aco Hardware in search of something better. This one has been up for a week now and so far they haven't figured it out.


Remember Stumpy? I noticed him out in the backyard today. Seems he's grown a little white tail where his old tail used to be. He's still as fat as ever!


We have a new resident on the pond, at least our side of the pond. The muskrats had this place last year on the other side of the pond.

But now they've built another one on our side. I've seen 3 muskrats working on it so maybe it's a new apartment for offspring.

I'm so looking forward to a short week! I only have to work Monday and Tuesday. H took the whole week off as he has quite a bit of vacation time to use up before the end of the year. It will just be the 3 of us for Thanksgiving on Thursday, a nice quiet day. And a few other days to maybe sleep in a little.

Have a good week and a Happy Thanksgiving!