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!