Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Christmas Eve was a really nice day. We went to church at our usual 7:30 time, enjoyed a bit of socializing over donuts after church. Jordan and I played a lot of cards (speed) while I was cooking the dinner. I made roast beef for my mom and dad. They came around 2 and we ate right away. We had a nice game of Monopoly (Steve won). We ended the evening by tuning into the TNT channel marathon of "A Christmas Story".

Christmas Day we headed up to St. Joe early for breakfast and gift exchanging with the family. We went to church at Cathedral at 10, then headed back. I took a walk trying to find some birds to photograph. Unfortunately it was EXTREMELY windy and cold. When I got back to the house, I just could not get warm. I took a little nap and then hung out around the stove to warm up. (turns out I had strep throat). Dinner was delicious. We headed back to Liberty around 6pm.

The day after Christmas was weird. I just didn't feel right. I was hot/cold and my throat kept hurting more and more as the day wore on. Now, try getting a doctor appointment the day after Christmas and see how far you get. Luckily with persistence I was able to find a doc in Liberty to see me and got on antibiotics right away after the postive test. (I won't EVEN talk about how crazy it was at Walgreen's trying to get the prescription!). I never did have a fever which was strange. Must have caught it early. By Wednesday morning I felt pretty good. The rest of the week was a bit hard, thinking of John and the kids having fun while I was working. Although John did take Jordan to the doctor as she didn't feel good Thursday. Wasn't strep, something else, and she got a shot of penicillin.

So, we are all back to good health now. It would be good to lose the holiday 7 though.

Here are some Christmas Eve and Christmas Day pictures:

The Tree

The outdoor lights, a bit sparse, but I think they are nice.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Jordan dealing out a speed hand.
Let me say, she is pretty darn fast!

Now, this guy really knows how to relax.
Fireball

Dad

Steve

Me and John

Steve and Mom



CHRISTMAS DAY

Mom and Dad T.

John and Erin

Steve

Kevin

Jordan and Sudoku

Isabelle and Raven

Shannon and Cameron

Mom T.

Mary
Anthony, Jared

Here is one of the windows from Cathedral
John used to live here


Jordan, John and Diane

MY LIFE SOUNDTRACK................

Jordan talked me into doing this little trick to find out your true, personal, life's soundtrack. So, the soundtrack to my life is.....

OPENING CREDITS: Stand Here With Me (Creed)
WAKING UP: What One Man Can Do (John Denver)
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL: Speed of Sound (Coldplay)
FALLING IN LOVE: Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen)
FIGHT SONG: One Week (Barenaked Ladies)
BREAKUP SONG: Minas Tirith (Howard Shore - LOTR 3 soundtrack)
PROM: I Want You To Want Me (Cheap Trick)
LIFE IS GOOD: Somebody Told Me (The Killers)
MENTAL BREAKDOWN: Amigone (Goo Goo Dolls)
DRIVING: One Will Fall By the Way (W.G. "Snuffy" Walden - The Stand soundtrack)
FLASHBACK: Jesus of Suburbia (Green Day)
GETTING BACK TOGETHER: Careless Whisper (Wham)
WEDDING SONG: St. Jimmy (Green Day)
FINAL BATTLE: Our Love, Don't Throw it All Away (Andy Gibb)
DEATH SCENE: Don't You Forget About Me (Simple Minds)
FUNERAL SONG: To the Wild Country (John Denver)
END CREDITS: Across the Stars, love theme (John Williams, Star Wars episode II soundtrack)

Dec 23 - Christmas baking....

Fudge Meltaways, our family tradition, and nobody makes them like John. Jordan made spritz cookies this year. So, for the first year in about 15 we did not make peanut butter bon-bons. That was odd. I don't think anybody brought them to Christmas dinner either. But, the crowd there is a lot smaller than in year's past, so that might have something to do with it.

Dec 20 - Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?

I have no brilliant observations on which of these is correct.

If I had to guess, I would say art imitates life,

but you should make your own decision.

.....by Steve

Dec 18th - Guitar Hero

My guitar hero needed to take some new pictures for his own blog.... He took these himself! And doesn't he look the coolest!

Dec 16th - Jordan's 2nd annual Christmas Party

Imagine being mom to teenagers. Now imagine you hear the words, "I think there are 16 coming"....... Luckily Jordan is pretty good at crowd control. Here are a couple of pictures of what a teen Christmas party is like at our house.

Don't even ask........

Girl Scouts Bird Watching

At our meeting this month we continued trying to sight and identify some birds. We did see Starlings, Junkos, more Downy Woodpeckers, and best of all we saw a "yellow-bellied sapsucker". This is a type of woodpecker, but it is a type with a red neck, which Jordan spotted. The picture I got wasn't very good, but was enough to identify the bird, so we were happy about that.

I love this first picture of the girls on the church property. Click to see the larger picture.

Girl scout babysitting project

I spent almost my entire weekend with the girl scouts troop babysitting project. I was really surprised that we didn't get many children. But the gals made $85 towards their New York trip, and every little bit helps. Here are a couple of pictures from that.

Fireball the egyptian...

When the kids and I were getting out the Christmas decorations, we came across the Halloween things, and were playing around with this egyptian wig that Jordan wore about three years ago. I guess I should say, I was playing with it, and the kids were trying to make me take it off! So, my next target was Fireball. Poor kitty. He was not a happy camper, as you can probably tell. But doesn't he make a cute egyptian?

Bunko Babes

We had our Christmas Bunko party. Unfortunately one of our Janes couldn't make it, but Carla came in her place! It was so nice to see Carla again after the couple of years she's been out of our group. Loretta as usual prepared a wonderful dinner. I had her homemade minestrone which was just fabulous. I won $10!

Dec 9th - TKD housewarming party

A big crowd turned out for the Davidson's housewarming party. I thought I had more pics, but this is the only one I uploaded. Their home is lovely and we had a great time.

Dec 9th - Darleen graduates!

My friend Darleen has been working very, very hard and she is pretty darn smart! She graduated from Rockhurst today! She already has a job to boot! I am so proud!

Here she is with her brother Garrett.

Here are Darleen's dad (Doyle) and stepmom (MaryAnn)

See that round cake? Garrett made that, "italian cream cake". It was very, very good. That's Denise in the back looking hungry.....hehehe.

Dec 8th - Rick's 30th - Quentin Tarentino party

Karen and Janessa

The crazy cake. And yes, the gun was edible.


Wow! Look at that GLOW from the many, many, many, many candles.......

Dec 6th - Visit from my sister

Here are some pictures from when Bea, mom and dad came over on the 6th.

Here is dad sipping on his tea....

Mom...

Hmmm...... What are these crazy people doing? Could they be taking pictures? Hmmmm. Looks like they are taking pictures.! What do you suppose they are taking pictures of???? It must be very important!

Here it is! These horses are a ceramic piece my Aunt Bonnie gave as a wedding gift to my mom and dad. My mom handed this down to me about 10 or so years ago. I have always loved it. I have many early memories of this piece! Mom thought since we had a nice fireplace at the time, I might as well have it, rather than have it packed away.

The gals....... Me, Mom and Bea....
The family!
Back row - mom, John, Jordan
Front row - Steve, me, dad, Bea

I got the idea to have mom and dad's hands. Another photo op! But a really nice picture.

~~FROZEN~~ in the cave!

I thought you all might enjoy some more cave pictures! This first one is of the entrance after the ice/snow storms.


Near the SpaceCenter corporate office is a "sunroom", basically a hole blasted on up to the surface. They have built windows all around this hole and you can even walk out through a set of doors and enjoy the air and sunshine!


Another view of the "sunroom"

Dec 2nd - Scrappy breakfast and grand opening

Here are the hardy breakfast crew at IHOP. From left to right: Karen, Carey, Kathy, Joann, Annette, Sunni, and Deb! We had a nice breakfast.

Here are Dana DeCarlo and Joann

Here am I - with my Kara Ward make & take. (Kathy and Deb chatting in the background). Kathy was patient and waited for us to do the make and take.

Week in Review....

A week or so of updates

Thur 12/07/06 – Took the kids to get a birthday gift for dad. Attended Girl Scout service unit meeting.

Wed 12/06/06 – Worked in the cave for 6 hours, then took off a little early, since mom, dad and Bea were coming over from Topeka. Bea said she had to see the young man with the deep voice (that would be Steve). So, we had a nice lunch of John’s most excellent stew and some fresh baked Schwan bread. Mmmm. We took a lot of pictures too. In fact, I took a few pictures of Bea and her monster camera taking pictures of other things. It was pretty funny. The kids got home from school and we sat around shooting the breeze for awhile. John arrived and accepted many compliments. We had some fun trying to find a particular quote in Macbeth.

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.
It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

After they left I had to go to our Northland church planning meeting for the diocese. It was quite interesting. I don’t feel I have that much to contribute personally, but I really love maps, and they had a BUNCH of huge maps of various areas of the northland.

Tue 12/05/06 – Mom’s 70th birthday today. I think she liked her surprise.

Mon 12/04/06 – Picked be up at 5:00 pm, drove her over to Topeka. It was quite fun. I had Bea wait at the garage, went up to the door and rang the bell. When mom answered the door, I said “We’re here!”. She wanted to know who “we” was. I said that the kids and John were getting something out of the car and would be right in. I said “didn’t you ask us for dinner tonight???” She said “ummm, no..”. That was funny. After we were talking for a minute, Bea came in and mom was surprised, although she didn’t show it much. We had a really nice visit before I had to head back home.