So Long 2007

Today is the last day of 2007. Wow, the year sure went by fast. I guess they all do. I guess it's good to start over every 365 days or so... :-)

As I mentioned in my last post, we had my family's Christmas get-together at my sister's house back on the 22nd. We picked up my Grandma from the nursing home and got to have some great family time. My oldest nephews (twins, both just turned 16), are really into movie making. They're working on a Batman type film with a bunch of their friends. Looks pretty good so far and they're even making a "bat-cave" in their downstairs basement. Pretty cool. We had a great meal and got some nice gifts.

On the 24th, after a small Christmas time with my little family, we headed up to my mother-in-law's house. On Christmas Day, we had a huge family get-together with about 20-some people. Lots of food, gifts, and even a little Bingo. :-) We came back home on Wednesday (26th). I took off work for the rest of the week to have more family time and to play with my kids' toys! YEAH! :-)

On Thursday (27th) we took off again to a large town about 100 miles away to a large mall. Gotta spend that Christmas Cash! I basically watched the kids as my wife did all the shopping, but we had a nice time. Friday (28th) I took my son all over town to various stores looking for the Mario Party game for the Nintendo DS. It was sold out everywhere. On Saturday, we went to another nearby town and I dropped my wife off at the mall. I took the kids to Best Buy and Toys 'R Us. We looked for the video game, but still no dice. Afterwards, I picked up the wife and we head back to our town and we went out to eat at a very good Mexican restaurant. That evening, we went online to try to find the video game and all the sites I knew of were all sold out. Must be a very popular game!!

Today I'm back at work to catch up on everything and to collect my paycheck! :-) Not really, as it's direct deposited, but actually, my boss was buying everyone's lunch as his Christmas gift to his group. I couldn't miss that! Pizza! Ummm Good!

Tonight, my wife is making some finger foods and we'll just have a little New Year's party at our house with just our family. I'll be building a fire in the fireplace, we'll maybe play some games and watch the ball drop. Fun stuff.

And so another year has come to an end.
Thanks for the memories.
Blessings and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Yes, Christmas is still a few days away, but today is the last day I'll be at my computer before then, so I gotta get my Christmas wishes in now to you all!

As I mentioned in my last post, last Friday night (14th), I tagged along with my son's church youth group. We took some food/money/etc. to a needy family and then we went to a fun center with climbing "things", video games, pizza, etc. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday (15th), we did get some snow, but not near as much as they predicted. It think we only got about 3-4 inches instead of the 6-8. Yeah! Saturday afternoon, I was playing ball with my daughter downstairs and the ball hit her in the mouth. I saw some blood and her other loose tooth was just hanging there. She pulled it out the rest of the way and ran upstairs to show Mom. So now she has lost both of her bottom middle teeth. And of course we had another visit from the Tooth Fairy.

We're having our family Christmas tomorrow at my sister's house along with my folks and my Grandma. We have to get together a little earlier as we're going up Christmas Eve day to my mother-in-law's house for a family get-together there on Christmas Day. All my nephews are excited when I come up as we play video games, ping-pong, etc. It's always a lot of fun.

The place were I work gave us off for Christmas Eve (usually we just get off Christmas Day), so to take advantage of the extra time off, I'm taking off the rest of the week as well. I think we're going to do a little shopping in a big town mall (maybe)... That's always fun with kids... Plus, I wanted to have the extra time to play with all the new toys my kids were getting! HA!

A lady I've worked with for a long time (not real close though) had her last day today. She retired after 29 years. She seemed real happy to be getting out of here. :-) Have fun in retirement, Mae!!

Again, Merry CHRISTmas Everyone!
Blessings!!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

Well, now that we've been covered in ice for a week and just now starting to thaw out (thanks to some sunshine today), tomorrow we're suppose to get hit with a snowstorm with close to 6-8 inches of snow. Gee Thanks!

*I* got sick yesterday (13th) and had to stay home. I think it may have been food poisoning instead of just a stomach bug though. On Monday (10th), we had fixed chili. That evening my wife and I had slight tummy aches, but nothing too bad, but that was the night my son got sick. Our daughter doesn't like chili and didn't eat any of it.

Wednesday (12th) was leftover night and I had another bowl of chili (I was the only one that ate it). I started to hurt in my tummy before bed (made it through church okay) and it was really painful during the night. I don't think I slept at all as I couldn't get comfortable. Even had a little diarrhea too. I decided to stay home that morning since I still wasn't feeling well and because I was so tired. After my wife took our son to school, I got up (our daughter was watching TV) and got a drink of water. I sat down on the couch and had that funny feeling in my throat.... rushed to the bathroom and.... yeah... that.... it all came up... quite a bit too...

I went to bed about 9pm last night and slept real good since I was sooo tired and feel great today. So, I'm wondering if it wasn't something bad in that chili... I had just bought everything that day (Monday the 10th) for it, so not sure what it might have been.

I'm suppose to tag along to an outing with my son's middle school church youth group tonight to help as some *adult supervision*. Ha! I'll be right there playing along! :-)

Blessings!

Still Icy

Well, it warmed up just enough that we didn't get any more ice last night. It just drizzled/misted all night long. I heard a few more branches breaking off too. But we still had a rough night. About 9pm, our son got sick and vomited. I don't know if he caught what our daughter had from a few days ago or if it was something he ate. After we got the kids to bed, about 9:40pm, our power went out. The whole neighborhood lost power and it stayed off ALL night long. About 2:30am, our son vomited again, so we didn't get a real good night's rest. We woke up about 7:20a and I was about to call the electric company again (I had tried numerous times in the evening, but always got a busy signal), when at 7:30a the lights came on! Yeah! I got my shower and then about 8:10a the power went off again for about 10 minutes. I went ahead and came on in to work and got here at 9am. Since it is above freezing, there was no problems with the roads, etc. School is still out today due to some of the school buildings having power outage problems.

There are some branches leaning on our roof that will be a pain to get off and a bunch of branches on the ground. One branch smashed part of our neighbor's fence. Ice is a lot worse than snow! Crazy weather!!

Blessings!

Icy

Saturday night we had a bad storm come through (lightning/thunder and rain turning to ice). Lots of people here without power (ours flickered on and off all day Sunday, but we never totally lost power). Everything was canceled yesterday (churches, events, etc.). We had some branches break off in a tree between us and the next door neighbor. A house across the street had a Bradford Pear tree just totally come down. Trees were just cracking and breaking all over. It was weird to hear them do that all day.

School is canceled today too. I just heard our mall lost power this morning too. We're kind of in a lull right now weather wise, but another really bad storm is coming in this evening/tonight. I probably won't make it in to work tomorrow if it's as bad as they say. I'm going by the grocery store after work to pick up some things just in case.

Work is pretty quiet today... The cafeteria in the building is even closed... Guess a lot of people stayed home since school was out or couldn't make it out. A lot of the cars parked out on our street were just ice covered. No way they're going to be able to open the doors!

Blessings!

We're Number... 6?

Eh... By now, history has already recorded the Mizzou loss to OU in the Big 12 Title game. The first half of the game was really good. The second half was terrible if you are a MU fan, awesome if you're a OU fan. Mizzou has now accepted the bid to play against Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day. Guess we'll see what happens there. MU was the only team in the top 10 in the BCS standings that didn't get invited to a BCS bowl game. What's up with that? Stinks! Oh well, maybe next year. At least they beat KU! HA! (LSU and Ohio State will now play in the BCS National Title game.)

Our daughter and her kindergarten class was suppose to perform in her school's Christmas chapel service this morning, but she woke up yesterday morning sick. She threw up in her bed about 5:30am. We kept her home from school and she threw up a few more times during the day and evening. We kept her home today too (which meant she missed her performance) just to be on the safe side. She's done better so far today though. I feel bad for her as she worked really hard on her songs and was really looking forward to performing for mom and dad.

I tried to do a little Christmas shopping last night for my wife. I had my son along and he could care less about shopping. That made it a little hard, but trying to find something I think my wife will like is even harder. I came home empty handed (well, not really... I bought a new pair of tennis shoes and some socks for me. ha!).

Happy Hanukkah!
Blessings!