Christmas Weekend Wrap Up

I took off the Friday before Christmas just to have an extra day with the family. In the morning I had a haircut appointment and then took my son with me to JCPenney's so he could find a gift for his mom. He picked out a nice bracelet for her. We got back home in time for lunch and then my wife picked up the babysitter to watch our daughter while the rest of us headed off to see the new movie "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." It was an awesome movie and we enjoyed it very much.

Saturday we didn't do a whole lot, but I did get all my Christmas gifts wrapped. I'm not a very good wrapper, so it takes me awhile to get them done. Saturday evening, we went by my uncle's house as my grandmother is staying there. We wanted to visit with her for awhile and she also had some gifts for us. Then we went to our church's annual Christmas Eve candlelight service. It's only 30 mins long, but a really neat time to get together and sing carols, etc. We usually go out to dinner afterwards, but it was raining, and since our daughter hasn't been feeling good, we decided to get some KFC chicken and go home. We got the last two biscuits at KFC and they locked the doors when we left, so we barely got dinner that night. We usually go driving around looking at Christmas lights too, but again, it was raining and now we had dinner to get home and eat, so we skipped that this year too.

We all got up early on Sunday morning to open gifts and then we had to get ready and head to church again for a 10 AM service. After church we came back home, changed clothes and then headed out to my sister's house for our family Christmas get-together. We had a nice lunch with all the fixin's. My mom makes an awesome pumpkin pie too! :-) After lunch, we tried to sing some carols as one of my nephews tried to play the songs on his guitar. He's a good guitar player, but he didn't know the songs very well... HA! So, that didn't last too long. Plus, the younger kids were getting impatient to open their gifts. :-)

On Monday, with Christmas cash burning in our pockets, we headed to a nearby town that has a nice mall. My wife got some more jewelry, some clothes, etc. and my son got a couple more games for his GameBoy SP. Our daughter still wasn't feeling too good, so I had to carry her around quite a bit. We also hit a Toy's R Us store and found some great sale deals. I personally didn't buy anything except a new 2006 Star Trek "Ships of the Line" calendar. I'm wanting to buy a Sony PSP Giga Pak system, but all the Giga Paks are sold out right now. :-(

Tuesday, I took off work again for a little more extended time off. Since we were gone most of the day on Sunday and Monday, the kids didn't get to play much with their new stuff. So on Tuesday, that's what we did most of the day. It was also a pretty nice day outside (low 60's), so my son and I played some basketball too.

I'm also taking off work tomorrow to make an extended New Year's weekend. We're having a small party at our house on Saturday night, so that should be a good time. But more about that next time.

Blessings and Happy Year New!

Christmas Catchup

Back at work today after an extended Christmas break/vacation. So, I'm playing catch-up today with all my work and emails. I'll try to post a nice wrap up of the Christmas weekend tomorrow. Just wanted to let you know that I survived it and was still out there alive and kicking. :-)

Blessings!

Merry Christmas 2005

I'm taking off work tomorrow, so I won't be able to make another entry until next week. Therefore I'd like to wish all my readers a wonderful and merry Christmas! We're planning on going to see the Chronicles of Narnia movie tomorrow afternoon, then go to our church's Christmas Eve service Saturday evening, then off to my sister's house on Christmas day after church to celebrate with family.

Be safe in your travels and remember the joy that Christ brings.

Many Blessings to You!

Countdown to Christmas

Hey, only a few days left! I've got all my shopping done except for taking my son to go look for something for his mom. We'll be doing that Friday morning. I'm taking Friday off, so we'll be doing that and then as a family we'll be going to go see the Chronicles of Narnia movie in the afternoon. Should be a fun day!

My daughter is still fighting some kind of cold/flu bug. When the cold meds wear off, her low grade fever returns. If it still wasn't better by today, then we were going to call the Dr.'s office. I haven't heard from my wife today, so I don't know how she's doing so far today.

Not much else has been going on this week... Been kind of slow at work, which almost always happens around the holidays.

Blessings!

Christmas with the In-Laws

Well, it was a small family get together as we had a nice snow fall all day on Saturday, so most of the family didn't want to venture out as there were reports of slick roads, wrecks, etc. Just the family that was there in the same town came over for Chili, hot dogs, cinnamon rolls and pie. For those that did come, we had a nice time. The rest that waited, were going to come on Sunday afternoon, but we had to leave earlier to get on home. It's a 3 1/2 drive, and with kids, that's not much fun. Thankfully it seemed to go smooth and we got home safe and sound.

My daughter woke up a little sick this morning, trying to throw up, etc., but I think it's mostly drainage. This weather is crazy by getting real cold and then here by the week's end, it's suppose to get close to 50 again. No wonder we're all getting sick...

Gotta do a little grocery shopping for my wife after I pick up my son from basketball practice tonight. That's always fun. I don't know where most of the stuff is in the store, so it always takes twice as long for me to pick stuff up than for my wife to do it. At least I'm not like that guy in the TV commercial that has to call his wife on the cell phone for every single decision, but I have thought about it sometimes... :-)

Blessings!

Christmas Time

Well, it's certainly getting closer... Only about a week away. But this weekend, it will be Christmas at my wife's mother's house, so that's we're heading today. I'm taking off at noon to help get things ready and packed, the dog to the kennel, and then pick up the boy from school and head down the highway (kind of like the 'over the hills and through the woods to grandmother's house we go' song).

Last night I had a weird encounter. I was at a local department store in the mall looking for that "one last gift" when a lady who was with her husband came up to me and said, "Are you David?" I looked at her and said, "Yes..." She said, "Do you recognize me?" Now, at this point, I was under pressure and I could feel my face getting hot... Great, this person knew me, but I didn't know them... I finally said, "No, I don't... I'm sorry." She smiled and said, "I'm ____!" Oh man, it was a lady that went to my church back when I was in high school. She was a little younger than me, probably my sister's age. She obviously didn't look like she did back then, so that's why I didn't recognize her. :-) She told me she had four kids and was a school teacher. It was really weird running into her like that. At least she recognized me... I guess that means I haven't changed all that much.... HA!

I get off at noon today! YEAH! It's almost time!

Blessings!

Day of Rest

Man, I hate when I get sick. Tues. (13th) afternoon I started feeling the aches and pains. By Tues. night I had the chills and a low fever. I woke up Wed. and was very light headed, so I just got back into bed and took the day off. I had a bad headache for most of the day and I'd get real hot or real cold. I woke up this morning a lot better, but I'm still not 100% back to normal. My throat still hurts some, so I've been drinking a lot of water today which helps.

Tonight, if my son gets his homework done early enough, I plan to take him to the mall to find a Christmas present for his mom. If not, then we'll just have to go some other time I guess, but since we're going out of town to celebrate Christmas with the in-law's this weekend, we won't much time left as those shopping days are counting down!

Blessings!

Broadway here we come...

Well, maybe not, but my son did FANTASTIC in his role in the kids Christmas musical at church this weekend. More on that in a bit...

By Friday night our whole family was wiped out from all the running around through the week and we were looking for a little "down" time. We had been babysitting a friend's pet and they came by Friday evening to pick it up... and ended up staying almost three hours! Ugh... Oh well, we had a nice visit with them and all went well.

Saturday we kind of slept in a little, but my wife still got up somewhat early as she had a haircut appointment and then did some grocery shopping. We ate a quick lunch and then headed to my son's first basketball game of the season. When we got there, we were shocked to find out that they charged admission at this particular school. My wife didn't bring her purse and I only had $1 in my wallet. After pleading our case, they went ahead and let us in free. :-) My son's team won the game! Yeah!

Right after the game, we headed for the church for the afternoon practice of the kids musical at 2:00pm. After dropping him off, the rest of us headed home for a few hours. One of my wife's sisters came down to see my son's performance for that evening too. It started at 6pm, so we got to the church to get good seats and got to see a wonderful performance. My sister and her whole family also came down to see the show too. After watching one of the practices, it's always amazing how the kids pull it off when it counts. :-) After the show, we all went to Ruby Tuesdays restaurant for dinner.

The next morning, we all got up and went to early service at church. My sister-in-law left for home after church (as she has a 4 hour drive home). We headed home, had a great lunch and then had to take my son back to church for another 2pm practice. Sunday evening we had a packed house for the performance and my parents and grandmother also came to see it. I was in the back this time videotaping the whole thing. The kids and especially my son did another outstanding job but you could tell some of the younger kids were just about worn out from doing the play just "one more time." My son was one of the main characters, the Arch Angel Michael, and wore an all white tuxedo. He really looked sharp!

We all came home afterwards and basically just crashed. Although my daughter woke us up at 2:30am this morning for some reason, and then I couldn't get back to sleep. I'm pretty tired this morning... but hanging in there.

Blessings!

First Snow Day

Over the night on Wednesday into most of Thursday morning, we got our first significant snow fall. We only ended up getting 2 inches, but North West of us, they got 8 to 10 + inches. School was cancelled yesterday too, so my son was happy about that.

It was bitterly cold this morning (close to Zero!) and walking into work was a very chilling experience! I'm fighting a slight cold (I think it's more of a sinus infection type of thing) and so this cold weather doesn't help. There was a few times today I just wanted to pack it in and go home to bed.

My son is going ice skating after school today with some of his friends. That's always fun. I'll pick him up after work and then we'll head home for dinner.

The new "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" movie starts tonight. I wish we could go, but this is just too busy of a weekend to fit one more thing in with my son's play this weekend. I think we're going to try and go on the 23rd while my son is out of school and I'm scheduled to be off work that day. Reviews of the movie look good!

One of my sister-in-laws is coming down tomorrow to see my son in his play. We don't get to see my wife's family very often as most of them live almost 4 hours away, so it is a nice treat when they come visit us.

Blessings!

Dr. Doolittle

I'm almost feeling like Dr. Doolittle. We're babysitting a guinea pig named Frodo for one of my son's friends who had to go out of town for the week to attend a funeral. Yesterday was his first day with us. He's in a big cage in our kitchen. He really likes lettuce and gets all excited and starts squeaking. He's cute. I'm surprised my wife agreed to keep him as she doesn't really like little "rodents.", but since guinea pigs don't resemble mice too much, I guess she's okay with it. All evening my daughter wanted to pet it. We finally tried, but I guess it's not quite used to us yet and it "seemed" like it wanted to bite her when she tried. Maybe later...

Well, we're finally suppose to get some significant snow tonight and tomorrow. They're saying 3-5 inches... We'll see... It'll either be nothing or a whole bunch.

A group of employees in the building I work in have been preparing for almost two months for a Christmas choir concert that they performed today. This was the 22nd annual performance. They did a really good job and made the lunch hour special. Okay, I'm ready for Christmas now!

Blessings!

December

Wow... It's hard to believe it's December already. But, I can't wait until Christmas to get all my new toys... HA!

We didn't do too much this weekend as it was just too cold outside. We had a load of wood delivered on Friday, so when I got home, my son and I got it all stacked. We even had a nice fire in the fireplace that evening too. They were having a "Living Windows" display downtown, but we didn't go due to the temps. Living Windows is where in the store windows, various groups perform for the passerbys. Various stores are open and you can get hot chocolate, candy canes, etc.

Saturday was the Christmas Parade downtown, but again, due to be so cold, we didn't go to that either.

Our family have all had scratchy throats and drainage too this weekend. I had a slight headache all day yesterday (Sunday). Our daughter woke up a few times during the night last night too and so we lost some precious sleep. In fact, my wife turned off the alarm this morning (after the first snooze hit) and we overslept. My son came in and woke us up. So it was kind of a rushed morning. I'm still sleepy even now.

Tonight, I go and pick up my son at his basketball practice, then run and grab a bite to eat with him and then I have to take him to the church for his children's choir musical practice which is this weekend. I hope he doesn't have much homework or it's going to be tough getting it done. He has b-ball practice and choir practice again on Thursday night too, so this week is going to be a long one and I'll be glad when it's over. While he's at choir practice tonight, I'm going to run to the store to find the last Christmas present for my wife. I hope it's the last one... I'm running out of money. :-)

Blessings!

Visitation

Last night after work, I went by the church as they were having a visitation for a lady who attends our church that passed away this past Monday from brain cancer. She had been battling this cancer for quite some time. She was only 57, a school teacher and a really nice lady. She and her husband have a daughter that is just out of high school. It is really hard to go to visitations as I never know what to say. But I guess just showing up and giving your support is what it's about. Her funeral was today. We'll miss ya Debbie, but you're in the hands of Jesus now, and in no pain, so we can rejoice and be comforted in that.

Blessings!