Have a very Merry Christmas!
I thank God for all of my friends and family.
Thank you for being a part of our lives.
PS- we are safe and at our final destination. It was quite a long story, but we made it here.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Speaking of...
chaos...
We are in beautiful Rawlins Wyoming. Enjoying the services of Travelodge. Thanks to my Ford Explorer.
After driving along I-80 for an hour or so on our Christmas trip, I get a curious light. Transmission overheating. Luckily, we only had to travel along 1/4 mile or so to get off on an exit. If you have ever driven across Wyoming, you know how lucky we were to be there! (God is good.) Luckily this exit had a truck stop. After stopping and getting out, and letting the car cool off some, we all piled back in and started it up. It started fine, but would not engage in any gear. No forward, no reverse.
So then we enjoyed the services of said truck stop for 4 hours while AAA came to our rescue.
They took us to Rawlins, where we spent the night in a safe place.
Kevin had to walk back down to the Ford dealership to check on what is happening with our car.
By the way- there are NO rental cars in Rawlins Wyoming.
And another side note... Kevin's sister Courtney, who was in Casper picking up his other sister, Kate, is now stuck in Casper with the stomach flu. They decided not to travel on so not to contaminate the rest of the family.
It certainly will be a Christmas to remember!!!
We are in beautiful Rawlins Wyoming. Enjoying the services of Travelodge. Thanks to my Ford Explorer.
After driving along I-80 for an hour or so on our Christmas trip, I get a curious light. Transmission overheating. Luckily, we only had to travel along 1/4 mile or so to get off on an exit. If you have ever driven across Wyoming, you know how lucky we were to be there! (God is good.) Luckily this exit had a truck stop. After stopping and getting out, and letting the car cool off some, we all piled back in and started it up. It started fine, but would not engage in any gear. No forward, no reverse.
So then we enjoyed the services of said truck stop for 4 hours while AAA came to our rescue.
They took us to Rawlins, where we spent the night in a safe place.
Kevin had to walk back down to the Ford dealership to check on what is happening with our car.
By the way- there are NO rental cars in Rawlins Wyoming.
And another side note... Kevin's sister Courtney, who was in Casper picking up his other sister, Kate, is now stuck in Casper with the stomach flu. They decided not to travel on so not to contaminate the rest of the family.
It certainly will be a Christmas to remember!!!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Speaking of...
Christmas boxes. We love it when grandmama and granddaddy's Christmas box arrives! It really fills out the tree.
Merry Christmas!!!
Christmas box
"Aunt Bob" sent along decorate it yourself gingerbread men for the kids in her Christmas box. They had a lot of fun this afternoon decorating. Well, some decorated more than others.... others just banged it on the table and then ate it.
Monday, December 17, 2007
update...
Just so you know, my mom thought my last entry was hilarious. And my dad read it with piles of my mom's Christmas cookies in his lap. Great.
She finds humor in my real or perceived pain... wait a minute... didn't I once say that I found humor in my own little ones real or perceived pain? what goes around, comes around, I guess.
So anyways, I am talking to her and say but "Bob" (my nickname for my sister) is so talented! Mom says, "She just found her niche."
"So then, what is my niche?"
"Take a look around you."
Okay, I look.
All I see is chaos.
Chaos is my niche.
Great.
She finds humor in my real or perceived pain... wait a minute... didn't I once say that I found humor in my own little ones real or perceived pain? what goes around, comes around, I guess.
So anyways, I am talking to her and say but "Bob" (my nickname for my sister) is so talented! Mom says, "She just found her niche."
"So then, what is my niche?"
"Take a look around you."
Okay, I look.
All I see is chaos.
Chaos is my niche.
Great.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
failure
I am a failure. No joke.
I grew up in a house where my mom had "days": Monday was "strip bed day", Tuesday was "clean bathrooms day", etc.. I don't have "days". Don't tell my mom, but sometimes I don't even have "weeks".
She made sure that we had 3 hot breakfasts and 2 cold breakfasts before school every week. My kids usually get their own breakfast and it is either cereal or toaster strudel. Sometimes I will make pancakes or french toast, but not anything regularly.
My mom cooks like no one's business. Seriously. You want good food, go to my mom's house. And the thing of it is, she loves to cook and so when you show up she will have a spread made for you! But please, give her some notice, she is a planner. I, on the other hand, have a collection of quick and easy recipes. Sure they taste fine and can be healthy, but it is not my mom's meat, roll, 2 types of veggies dinner. And usually the roll is homemade and the veggies are from her garden. No garden here. Not many homemade rolls either.
My mom made piles of Christmas cookies. Piles, I tell you. I am lucky to squeeze out a batch or two. And hers were always so beautiful and tasty. Mine are ok.
And now I am being shown up by my LITTLE sister too! Obviously she got all the good stuff from mom. She can cook, sew, bake, etc... just like mom. It's sickening I tell you! Here is a good example for you. I tried to make my mom's annual Christmas pretzel cookies... here is how they turned out...
not quite what mom used to make. And not even close to what lil sis makes either. She happened to make the same like of cookies at the same time. Here is what her batch looked like...
Did you notice that hers actually look like pretzels? And don't you just want to take a bite right now?
Mine? Not so much.
And not only that, but take a look at her piles. PILES of cookies that she is mailing out to all her friends.
Oh, woe is me.
I grew up in a house where my mom had "days": Monday was "strip bed day", Tuesday was "clean bathrooms day", etc.. I don't have "days". Don't tell my mom, but sometimes I don't even have "weeks".
She made sure that we had 3 hot breakfasts and 2 cold breakfasts before school every week. My kids usually get their own breakfast and it is either cereal or toaster strudel. Sometimes I will make pancakes or french toast, but not anything regularly.
My mom cooks like no one's business. Seriously. You want good food, go to my mom's house. And the thing of it is, she loves to cook and so when you show up she will have a spread made for you! But please, give her some notice, she is a planner. I, on the other hand, have a collection of quick and easy recipes. Sure they taste fine and can be healthy, but it is not my mom's meat, roll, 2 types of veggies dinner. And usually the roll is homemade and the veggies are from her garden. No garden here. Not many homemade rolls either.
My mom made piles of Christmas cookies. Piles, I tell you. I am lucky to squeeze out a batch or two. And hers were always so beautiful and tasty. Mine are ok.
And now I am being shown up by my LITTLE sister too! Obviously she got all the good stuff from mom. She can cook, sew, bake, etc... just like mom. It's sickening I tell you! Here is a good example for you. I tried to make my mom's annual Christmas pretzel cookies... here is how they turned out...
not quite what mom used to make. And not even close to what lil sis makes either. She happened to make the same like of cookies at the same time. Here is what her batch looked like...
Did you notice that hers actually look like pretzels? And don't you just want to take a bite right now?
Mine? Not so much.
And not only that, but take a look at her piles. PILES of cookies that she is mailing out to all her friends.
Oh, woe is me.
A future in dance?
Often we talk to our kids about what they would like to do when they grow up so that we can help them along that path. If there are activities that they can try out to see if that happens to be a field that they like and would like to learn more about. One day we were riding on the light rail train and I asked Bales what she wants to do when she grows up. Out of nowhere she states that she wants to go to Broadway.
Broadway?
Okay, anyone that knows Bailey can actually see this. She very well could be Broadway bound. She has the looks and the personality, just not the perseverance that she would need. We can work on that.
So she has been taking dance lessons. She is in ballet and tap. I have not let her perform in the end of year show before, because of a couple of reasons. One- when she was little, it just didn't make sense. Two- the costumes are outrageously expensive and Three- I was worried about them "tarting" up little girls. But this year, we were actually around when they did the Holiday performance. No costumes besides what they usually wear. It was expensive, but I decided to go for it and she how she did up there on stage in front of a huge room full of people.
I am working on uploading the clip here. But she did really well. No stage fright. She remembered most of her dance and she had fun. She also loved watching all the big girls dance, and I think that helped her in her motivation to stay in dance in the springtime.
By the way, the studio she dances at is called Off Broadway.
She never knew what Broadway was.
Broadway?
Okay, anyone that knows Bailey can actually see this. She very well could be Broadway bound. She has the looks and the personality, just not the perseverance that she would need. We can work on that.
So she has been taking dance lessons. She is in ballet and tap. I have not let her perform in the end of year show before, because of a couple of reasons. One- when she was little, it just didn't make sense. Two- the costumes are outrageously expensive and Three- I was worried about them "tarting" up little girls. But this year, we were actually around when they did the Holiday performance. No costumes besides what they usually wear. It was expensive, but I decided to go for it and she how she did up there on stage in front of a huge room full of people.
I am working on uploading the clip here. But she did really well. No stage fright. She remembered most of her dance and she had fun. She also loved watching all the big girls dance, and I think that helped her in her motivation to stay in dance in the springtime.
By the way, the studio she dances at is called Off Broadway.
She never knew what Broadway was.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The talk
So, we were blind-sided at dinner the other night.
"Mom, is Elvis still alive?"
My first thought was, "what?" How does this kid even know who Elvis is any ways? (I never did find out the answer to that)
I answered "No, he died in 1978 or something like that."
"How did he die? Was he shot or something?"
"Nope, he died because of drugs."
Now here is the real question that parents just love to deal with, besides the s-e-x one....
"Mom, what are drugs?"
So we started the talk, right there at the Red Robin table and it continued in the car on the way home, and into bed time. What are drugs? Who takes drugs? Are there any safe drugs? Do you know anyone that died using drugs? Did you lose any friends because you never did drugs? etc, etc, etc...
I can only hope that I did okay with "the talk". Kevin's version was a lot shorter... "WE DON"T DO DRUGS!!!" Mine was a lot longer, more complex, and probably more life long.
Being a parent is really hard!
Now when will we have the next talk about s-e-x?
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