Off We Go!

As 2008 winds down and we pack up the Christmas decorations, we look forward to bringing in the new year at Jenny Lake.

The four of us have been making some screamin' music on our Wii Rock Band! It is quite addictive as we try to improve our skills and earn new songs to try to play. The four of us rotate through playing lead guitar, the bass, the drums and vocals. The vocals assignment is the least favorite, but we each have songs that we do pretty well. 

I have enjoyed the WiiFit and WiiSport. Again, the more we use it the more games and levels we unlock. 

In order to enjoy our Wii system even more we convinced Jim that we really needed a new TV. Some of you may know that when our house was robbed almost 3 years ago, we never replaced the TV that was stolen from our living room. We moved the small TV from our bedroom downstairs and have been making due with the small screen. That worked OK unless we were trying to watch a TV program that involved a ball (golf, tennis, baseball, football) or were trying to read any of the small print that streams across the lower edge of the screen (think weather warnings), then the viewing was not so good. So here is a photo of Corey playing one of the WiiFit games on our new TV. It is a wonderful upgrade and my Rock Band skills improved immensely once I could actually see the notes coming at me!

Corey helped me decorate the tree and Tucker helped me take it down and put away most of the Christmas. I don't like to go away for New Year's and then come home to undecorate the house, so we are good to go now.

We're not sure about what conditions we will find at Jenny Lake, snow, no snow, ice, no ice, but we are prepared for most outdoor activities. 

My amaryllis plants are getting ready to bloom! Check out this photo.

I don't know whether or not I will be able to blog about our activities at camp because the internet access is sketchy. If not, I thank you for reading and commenting on my blog. I wish you joy and peace in 2009

Hope all is well. 

Merry Christmas-a Day Late!

It has been awhile since I posted a new blog entry and it is because we have been so busy, not because there has been nothing to write about. So here is a review of what we've been up to.

First of all, Merry Christmas. I hope it was a good day for you. We had a wonderful day with family and friends, but more on that later.

This past Monday we had a snow day from school because of blowing snow and arctic temperature. It was a great day at home, getting ready for the upcoming holiday. In the middle of the afternoon, we drove over to Syracuse, where they were in the midst of getting 8-12 inches of snow! We had tickets to an SU basktetball game against Coppin State. But first we ate dinner at the German restaurant I like so much~ I enjoyed it and the boys managed to find things they liked! Bob, Sally, and Liz joined us at the game and we had a good time watching Syracuse win the game.

Tuesday was my last day at school before our Winter Recess and Jim started his vacation time. Corey invited a couple of his high school friends over for dinner so he and Tucker made us all a wonderful dinner of BBQ ribs. 

On Christmas Eve Day we readied for a big dinner gathering at our house. Grandma did all the cooking and brought dinner to our house. Bob and Joanie arrived from Michigan so we were 10 around the dinner table. We ended our evening by attending the 11 PM service at church and it was a wonderful service with good music. 

Christmas morning did not start until after 9 AM, a real change from the days when the boys were little and would be up with the sun in anticipation of seeing if Santa came. Well, even with a later start, we did discover that Santa stopped at our house and left us some wonderful gifts.

Gram, GrandDad, Bob and Joanie came over to spend Christmas morning with us and have a traditional breakfast of egg strata, Bishops Bread, grapefruit and juice. Once again, we had another great meal. 

Jim gave me the Wii Sport and Wii Fit system for Christmas and we quickly got that set up and started to play with the many fun options that are available. In the photo below, I am trying to launch myself on the Ski Jump game.

Later in the day as the family and friends arrived we got them involved in Wii Sports. Here are some photos of the grandparents trying to figure out this crazy way to go bowling.

We had a lot of laughs and got some exercise before sitting down to Christmas dinner. This is a fuzzy photo, but it documents the 13 people who gathered at our house for this celebration.

Liz asked if we could do a sing-along after sitting between Tucker and Corey and in front of Bob at church the night before so after dinner Bob switched between playing Corey's new electric keyboard and our very out-of-tune piano and we sang a variety of holiday songs. It was  fun time. When we didn't know the lyrics or chords to a song Jim would do a quick internet search to get us through a song.
Our night ended with a duet with Corey and Bob K. singing a song that is normally done by a male and female singer with brother, Bob, accompanying them. 

This morning we four braved the crowds at the mall and went shopping for Rock Band to go with my Wii. We bought that and an extra guitar and an extra controller! We spent the next hour learning how to rock and roll!
We took a break around lunchtime to go to Schaller's for lunch with the family, one of the things that my brother Bob has to do when he is in town. 

When we returned the home, the four of us spent the next 2 hours playing Rock Band! It is addictive and great fun! I feel like we could do a commercial for Mastercard:

An extra guitar - $20

Rock Band - 100-plus dollars

Two hours of playing with your kids - Priceless!

Tonight Gram, GrandDad, Bob and Joanie came over for a night of Pontillo's pizza, beer and Three Stooges. We watched several episodes and then went back to some Rock Band performances!

Here are some final Rock Band photos with some jammin' band members.

Hope all is well.

Weekend Update

Sunday night-the snow is falling and the wind is blowing and I am hoping for  a Snow Day tomorrow! That probably won't happen as the forecast is only calling for 1-3 inches of the white stuff.

We do have a lot of white stuff on the ground~well over a foot. It sure looks pretty!

Saturday we did some errands and some decorating around the house. At night, Jim and I went to Sherri and Terry's house, along with Jean and Dave. Sherri cooked us a wonderful dinner and we all had a lot of laughs.
 

There is a new dog at Sherri and Terry's house, a black dachshound that belongs to Allison. The dog made the rounds at the dinner table, with Jim being a favorite!

We left there about 11 PM, after a couple hours of playing some fun games. When we got to our house, there was a car in front with Virginia license plates on it~Liz was here! She gave up trying to fly to Rochester from DC and just drove. We spent the next hour catching up with her and making some plans for the next week or so. 

Today was a full, rich day! An early morning trip to Wegmans to get some groceries for the next few days resulted in a bill of $175! I haven't spent that much at Wegmans since this time last year when the boys were home. We four all went to church and lots of folks were glad to see the boys. From church we made a quick stop at home to eat some sandwiches before heading downtown to the Geva Theater to see a comedy called Triple Espresso. It was very funny and we would recommend it to anyone looking for an entertaining show. It is appropriate for all ages. 

Right after the show we drove to Eastview Mall because our laptop computer died and we had an appointment with a "genius" at the Apple Store. Now we were a bit concerned about heading to a very popular mall on the Sunday before Christmas, especially after we read in the morning paper about people waiting for several hours on the roads leading into the mall yesterday!  Well, lots of people must have read that same article and stayed away because at 4 PM we drove right up and got a decent parking spot. Jim got to talk to a "genius" right away, and the guy took our laptop to replace some of its innards and it will be ready in a couple of days. I dragged all three boys into a couple of stores, before we went to an early dinner at Biaggi's restaurant. We like the food there and once again had a good meal.

I have school on Monday and Tuesday, but Jim will go in for half a day tomorrow and then be off the rest of the week. Tomorrow night we are going to Syracuse for a basketball game. So I will give a report on that in the next posting.

Hope all is well.  

Full Nest

The nest is full once again and all is right in our little corner of the world. Tucker made it home with only a slight delay in his travel plans. He was originally scheduled to arrive in Rochester at 3:30 PM on Wednesday, but Tuesday night the airline cancelled all his flights and re-scheduled his itinerary to get him into Rochester at 10:30 PM on Wednesday. He actually arrived just before midnight, so he got home on the day he was supposed to!

Corey has been sick with a fever and sore throat, but seems to be on the upswing tonight.  

Rochester was not spared from the big winter storm that swept through the midwest earlier this week. This morning the weather guys were predicting big snows and winds starting later in the morning. Many schools in the out-lying areas cancelled school just on the word of the weather guys and they made the right decision. The snow started about 9 AM and didn't let up until about 6 PM. My school district let the high schoolers out an hour early so that the buses could be sure to be ready for the elementary dismissal time. Our principal requested that all extra teachers go outside and help the kids get to their buses because our sidewalks were quite icy, the wind was howling and the snow was coming down pretty good. It was quite an adventure!

My little Beetle was buried up to its bumpers in the parking lot and it took me two tries to back out of my parking space, but the power of the Bug prevailed and I was on my way home at 15 mph! Once I pulled (slid) into our driveway, I closed the garage door and planned to stay home the rest of the evening. Jim arrived home shortly after I did, having walked the 2.5 miles from his office. 

Tucker made us a delicious dinner of Green Chili Stew and corn bread with jalapenos! Corey has made dinner for us a couple of nights and that is such a treat for me.

After our dinner, Jim revved up the snowblower and cleaned out the driveway while Tucker and I went for a wintery walk around the block. It was wonderfully invigorating and surprisingly enough, we were the only walkers out!

Jim cleared out between 8 and 14 inches of snow in our driveway and it has continued to snow so we'll end up with a foot of snow once this system moves on. More snow is forecasted for Sunday. A white Christmas seems to be a good bet at this point.

Here is a photo of my latest knitting project-a Fair Isle hat. Fair Isle is knitting with 2 colors of yarn at the same time. I am quite happy with the results and am now making a matching scarf with the extra yarn. I wore the hat on our walk tonight and it was quite warm.

We spent the evening watching the Grinch movie, a holiday tradition in our house. We'll complete our movie tradition closer to Christmas when we view White Christmas.

We are looking forward to some weekend plans, including dinner with friends on Saturday night and going to Geva theater on Sunday afternoon. 

Hope all is well. 

2008

Hello to our family and friends! Once again we will do a "green" Christmas letter and save a tree. 

This will be the highly condensed overview of our year. If you want more details, you can navigate your way around this family blog and probably learn more than you really want to know!

We brought in 2008 in our usual way, with Bob, Sally, and Liz at Jenny Lake. We ran in a race on New Year's Eve and then returned to camp for some snow tubing as 2007 became 2008.

Tucker then returned to Utah and Corey to Syracuse and Jim and I were once again Empty Nesters. 

Instead of our usual trip to Ottawa in February, we four all met up in San Diego where Corey and Jim were running in a race. Sunny, southern California in February is not too hard to take. Corey had to go back to SU after his race, but not before he and some of his teammates came to our rented beach house for a chilly ocean swim and some beach volleyball.  Jim, Tucker and I stayed for a few more days and did lots of touristy things. 

In April, during the spring break from school, Jim and I went to the eastern shore of Maryland for a week of biking. We got to visit some friends and do lots of flat bike riding. We put 200 miles on our bikes, stayed in a couple of nice B&B's, and enjoyed the scenery along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Corey's freshman year at Syracuse wrapped in early May and he quickly departed to take a course to become a certified kayak instructor. He spent the rest of the summer running and teaching the young and old to kayak. It was a great summer job!

I spent a lot of time on my bike during the summer. I rode in RABBRAI, the bike ride across Iowa with Bob and Sally. This was our 10th time on the ride and it was another wonderful event. We did about 500 miles in 7 days and by the time we dipped our front tires in the mighty Mississippi River we were feeling fit and proud of our accomplishment. 

I continued training because in mid-August I set off by myself for a 5 day ride along the Hudson River, from Albany to New York City. I joined up with a tour of about 150 people and made lots of new friends. Some highlights of that ride were a sunset boat tour on the river, riding across 5 different bridges on our way to NYC and touring West Point. 

Shortly after getting home from NYC, Jim and I boarded the Amtrac train and returned to NYC, where we boarded a Carnival Cruise ship for a 5 day cruise to Canada.

We had stops in Halifax, Nova Scotia and St. John, New Brunswick. We came away from both places wanting to return someday in our car so we could explore that area more thoroughly. Taking the train to and from NYC was a delightful way to travel and at at time when gas was $4-plus a gallon, it was the most economical. 

Shortly after my school year started in September, Jim flew out west to go backpacking with Tucker for 5 days. They hiked the beautiful Paria Canyon. 

In October Jim's nephew, Michal, got married in Memphis to a lovely young lady named, Elizabeth. We had a mini family reunion in Memphis and enjoyed all the festivities that go with a wedding. 

Tucker continues to do his archaeology work in southeastern Utah and enjoys his work. If you ever find yourself in that part of the country, get in touch with him. You could not find a better guide! 

Corey is in his second year at Syracuse University and loves his life at SU. He continues to run for the school in all three sports' seasons. As SU fans we are so happy that the football season has mercifully come to an end, and now have reason to be excited about the basketball season. 

Jim and I continue in our jobs and have stopped dreaming about retirement and wonder if we will ever be able to retire with the economy in its current state. We take a weekly yoga class together as we try to hold onto whatever flexibility we may have! Jim travels for both work and pleasure, as his running takes him all around the country.

I have enjoyed traveling to several Sheep and Wool festivals, especially since I learned to spin yarn this year. I bought a spinning wheel and have enjoyed the physical and intellectual challenge that spinning has provided. 

Both boys will be home for the holidays. I can hardly wait to turn over the dinner duties to those two~they are both such good cooks! 

If you find yourself in western New York, we'd love to have you visit. Do you have something to share about your life? Leave us a comment or give us a call.

In these uncertain times, when the news is full of stories of hardship and unrest, our wish for you is peace. Peace in your life, peace in your house and peace in our world. 

Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2009. 

Hope all is well.

One Elf Home, One to Go!

Here is our Elf Yourself presentation! If you have a slow internet connection, it may not be worth your time to try to watch it. Enjoy!

Send your own ElfYourself eCard

It was a busy weekend. First off, the running news. Jim travelled to wintery Spokane, WA for the 10K National Masters Cross-Country Race. He took 2nd place in his age-group and his Veteran's team took 4th place out of 8 teams. Jim was not real happy with his race, realizing just how sick he was the week before the race. I'm sure he was still glad he went to Spokane.

I went to two holiday parties over the weekend. The Friday night party was for the school staff and it was at a staff member's house. It was fun to have the time to stand around and just talk to colleagues about non-school stuff. Saturday evening I went to a party for one of the social groups at church. Again, it was fun to chat with people and find some common interests or learn something new about someone. 

Gram and I baked Christmas Cookies. That has become a tradition that I look forward to. I will make some fudge and peanut brittle later this week. 

I got started on decorating my Gingerbread House. I will assemble it this week.

Corey and I decorated the Christmas tree last night and we are quite pleased with the results. The tree has some natural decorations~pinecones near the top of the tree.

We are now looking forward to Tucker's arrival on Wednesday. Of course, the weather forecast is sketchy, so we will keep our fingers crossed for uneventful flights for him. 

Hope all is well.

Ready for a Weekend

Here it is, a Friday in the early evening. Jim is in Spokane, Corey comes home tomorrow and I have a Christmas party to go to tonight. 

On Wednesday we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for a birthday dinner. Grandma cooked a great meal of Swiss Steak, mashed potatoes, mixed veggies, green salad, and Apple Crisp for dessert. It was  a wonderful change from the pasta/chicken/broccoli cassarole that Jim and I ate for the three nights prior to dinner at Grandma's! Here are a couple of photos from our dinner.

I had a good allergic reaction to G & G's cats. Shortly after arriving I was getting congested and soon was sneezing. Now I know where the boys get it! About 30 minutes after we got home, my nose began to clear and I was fine by bedtime. Here is one of the culprits of my nasal distress:

Yesterday I did not go to school because I had an appointment with my doctor for a physical. You may remember that I was interested in volunteering at Unity Hospital and the application process requires a full physical from a doctor. It has been awhile since my last physical so I made an appointment and I am pleased to report that I was declared to be in great shape. I do have to have blood work done, which I will do next week.

After my doctor's appointment, I ran to about a dozen different stores around the county and returned books to Gates Library. I had a little success while shopping, but I cannot write anymore about that.

I did go to the East Rochester yarn store and bought yarn for new hat for me. I have wanted to try Fair Isle knitting which involves using 2 colors of yarn. This Fair Isle hat pattern seems fairly straight forward, especially for a beginner. I got started on the hat last night and will hope to get some more knitting done tonight.

I've been doing the parachute at school the past few days and the kids just love it. My hair is a disaster from all the static electricity in the parachute that makes my hair stand on end when we are all under the parachute! It is a great opportunity to help the children learn that it is OK to laugh at yourself when others are laughing!

I think a lot of the staff from school will be at the party tonight. It is at the home of one of our teachers and I imagine it will be quite crowded, unless she has some kind of mansion. I don't plan to stay late, but we'll see how much fun I am having.

Tomorrow is cookie day. Gram will be here at 9AM ready to cut, roll  and dip lots of cookies. We work really well together. GrandDad has ground up a bag of nuts so we are ready to go. 

Corey will be home tomorrow afternoon. I think I will have to pick him up in Penfield. 

Jim races around 11:30 (2:30 Rochester time). I think the weather report has improved since he left here yesterday morning. Good Luck, Jim and Run Fast!!

Hope all is well.  

A Tuesday in December

Not much to report from here. 

Corey lost his wallet and is hoping to go to the Track House tonight and find it. We hope so too.

Tucker has been in touch with his Christmas wish list and a request for the specifics on his flights home.

Tonight my bell choir from church took our show on the road to be the entertainment at a Catholic Women's group Christmas dinner. It was held at one of the local party houses, which meant that we had to schlep all the bell equipment over there. Unfortunately one of our ringers came down with the flu today so our director had to ring bells (in the spot next to me) instead of directing us. The lack of a director was evident in a couple of our more difficult pieces. But we rang some familiar carols and invited the women to sing along, which got everyone in the holiday spirit. Here is a photo of me and most of the the bell choir. 

Tomorrow night we are going to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a birthday dinner for Grandpa.  He will be 92 on Thursday! Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Jim leaves for Spokane on Thursday and is feeling better everyday.

Hope all is well.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Today we went hunting for our Christmas tree. We went to a large nature preserve where thousands of trees were "put out" for us! In no time we had brought down one tree .  The weather was perfect and it took us only 15 minutes for Jim to get on point on this tree. Five minutes later, with the tree in our sights, we bagged this short-needled, pinecone carrying tree. 

Some of you may be thinking "those poor trees, they didn't stand a chance." Well, that's the idea. These trees were planted with the intent that someday some saw-carrying yahoo would boldly stride out into the field and without a thought or care, saw through the mighty trunk of this once-living oxygen producing evergreen! And for what purpose? To hang gaudy balls and bobbles from.  Yes, it is the American way!

The preceding account of the harvesting of this year's Christmas tree was written to give my brother, Bob, a chuckle! Are you laughing, Bob? I hope so because I had a good time writing it.

Today is nephew Zach's 15th birthday! Happy Birthday, Zach! Jim reports that Zach is taller than Maryanne! Don't worry about this, Maryanne. When my boys got taller than me, I just told them to sit down when I wanted to yell at them!

Sick Bay Update: Jim is feeling better! He actually went for a run yesterday and today. Of course, after hunting for a tree this morning and a run earlier in the day, he took a serious nap this afternoon. 

Our neighbor put up his holiday decorations today, including this inflatable Grinch. We were hoping that the Grinch came with a rake seeing as our neighbor has not raked up his leaves (as usual) and they are slowly blowing into our yard. However, we are big fans of the Grinch and he makes me smile when I look out my windows and see him glowing in the darkness!

I started working on my gingerbread house today. I got all the pieces cut out and baked. I did some research on the internet and  got some new things to try. I will post photos when I have it completed. 

Some of you may be wondering how we transported our Christmas tree now that we no longer have a mini-van. One of the reasons that Jim selected this particular Vibe was that the one or both of the back seats can be folded down and the front passenger seat can also go flat. This was an important feature, which would allow Corey to carry his kayak inside the car. It also allowed us to put the tree in the car easily. By this time next year, we hope to have a roof-top carrier for this car which will allow us to carry our tree and Gram and GrandDad's tree on the roof. Thule, the company that makes roof-top carriers, is currently working on the unit for a 2009 Vibe.

Hope all is well.

Report from the Sick Ward

Jim is still sick. He stayed home from work on Tuesday and Wednesday and went in for a while this morning, came home for a nap and then went back for a late afternoon meeting. When he went to see the doctor on Tuesday, she gave him a prescription for an antibiotic with instructions to wait until today to have it filled if he wasn't feeling better. He had the thing filled on his way home from work today. Three pills-$54! They had better work! We did go for a walk around the block after dinner tonight because he needed to move a bit and wanted some fresh air. Hopefully he will turn the corner on this thing in the very near future. Of course I am hoping that I don't catch it!

Today was a Parent/Teacher conference day at school and I got a lot of desk work done and sat in on 2 conferences. Tomorrow is the second P/T conference day and it will be my cleaning day. I plan to dig out our equipment room and vacuum the dust bunnies, which are threatening to take over the place. It will be very quiet at school because if teachers have all their conferences done by today, they do not have to come in tomorrow. Most teachers have been at school every night this week accommodating the many parent requests for evening conferences. 

I have recently purchased two new Christmas albums. The first one is Sheryl Crow's holiday CD, entitled Home for Christmas. The second one is Faith Hill's CD Joy to the World. Both are nice additions to my collection.  I was able to listen to snippets of Faith Hill's songs on iTunes, and it didn't sound too "country" so I bought it and it is very easy to listen to. I got Sheryl Crow's CD at a local Hallmark store-I don't know where else it may be available. So if you are looking for something new for the holiday season I can recommend either or both of these CD's.

One morning recently, I was treated to this view out of my kitchen window:

I started knitting again and I think my elbows feel better. I know that in the next few weeks there will be no large blocks of knitting time so maybe I can avoid sore elbows in the future. 

Time to watch The Office.

Hope all is well.

Historic Event

Jim stayed home from work today because he is sick and that is a rare event. Jim has been fairly healthy for a long time. Even when one of the boys or I brought home "school" germs, Jim seemed to have the immune system to shut them out, but something got to him and he has a whopper of a cold with an occasional fever, ranging from 95.9 to 101.7 degrees, and a sore throat. Corey, Dad thought you might be interested in the temperature data! He even went to the doctor's office today to get a strep test. The quick strep test came back negative, but they did the 24 hour test and will get the results of that in a day or so. Jim may not have gone to the doctor's but he has a big race in 11 days and really wants to be healthy for it. He may even stay home tomorrow too (doctor's orders). Hopefully a couple days of laying low will work wonders on him. 

I am not knitting for a couple of days because my elbows started to ache a bit last night and I realized it may be from all the knitting I did over the Thanksgiving break. Hopefully this short break from the needles will get me back to normal. 

Guess that is all for now. Maybe I'll start our Christmas cards.

Hope all is well. 

End of November

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone and tomorrow is December 1st, Christmas will be here in no time! Yikes!

I did get one of my holiday traditions taken care of today and that is I've started making Candy Cane Candy and tonight Jim and I took all of the out-of-town boxes to the Post Office. So if I usually send you Candy Cane Candy, watch for it in the mail this week. If it doesn't show up it means one of two things, either I forgot or you have done something to get removed from my list!!! Either way, get in touch with me and we'll work it out!

We had an interesting thing happen at the Post Office. You may know that I love the self-serve postage machine-it lets me mail packages on Sunday night without waiting in a line. Well, I had just started getting the postage on my 12 packages when another guy came in with one big box. I asked if that was all he had and then let him jump in and get the postage for his box, thinking it was my good deed for the day. He didn't take long and thanked me again before he left. Then I continued getting postage for all my little boxes. However, when Jim went to put the boxes into the container, the door would not open. Apparently, the other guy's box filled the container to the point that the door would not open any more! So I finished getting the postage on all the boxes and will put them in the mail at school tomorrow! So much for doing a good deed! 

Corey went back to school last night. He will be home again on December 13th. Before he left yesterday, he and Jim went out for a run. I saw that as an opportunity to get a photo of the two of them. I grabbed my camera and told them to stand next to each other on the sidewalk, and this is what I got! Wise guys! 

With a bit more encouragement, they turned to face the camera and gave me a better shot!

I got some good spinning done in the past 2 days, both on my bike and on my spinning wheel! I continue to spin on the blue-face leister fiber and the plastic bag from which I pull the fiber, never seems to get any less full! 

Tonight I cooked a turkey breast, made some stuffing from a box and homemade mashed potatoes and we had another Thanksgiving meal. There was enough left over, intentionally, so we can have a turkey casserole on Tuesday night. 

The Buffalo Bills looked bad today and lost. They had such a good start to the football season and now are just falling apart. The college football scene was pretty exciting yesterday and we watched several really good games-of course the Syracuse game was not one of the good ones. Mercifully the season is over for them and we can now look forward to the Orange basketball season. 

Rain, sleet and snow are in the forecast for tonight. Should be an interesting drive to school tomorrow. 

Did anyone get any good deals while shopping on Black Friday? I got a bargain on the sneakers that I wear everyday and I didn't even have to wait in a line to pay for them at Dicks. Of course I was there at the very reasonable hour of 11:00 AM. I was very sad and mad after reading about the poor person who was trampled to death at a Walmart as early shoppers broke down the door and overran that employee. That whole situation is wrong on many levels. And then did you hear about the 2 men who shot each other in a Toys R Us when their ladies started fighting over a toy? What is wrong with these people?

We enjoyed having Corey home for a few days and will look forward to his Winter break when we can have both boys in our nest. 

Hope all is well.

Happy Thanksgiving

We have had an enjoyable Thanksgiving and hope you had the same. Did you take some time to ponder the many things for which you are grateful? Research shows that people who reflect on their blessings are healthier and happier, so don't delay, reflect today.

Our day started early as Jim was running in the Race with Grace. He left real early and I went over a bit later to spectate. GrandDad went with me. Corey stayed home and slept. Jim had a good race, finishing 19th out of 886 runners in this 10K race.

Bob and Liz ran also and should be congratulated on finishing 6th out of 17 father/daughter teams! 

Once Corey got up and Jim got home from the race awards ceremony (he won his age-group, so had to stay to pick up the award $), we all went out to finish raking and hauling leaves. We were glad to have Corey here to help. 
We had Thanksgiving dinner at Gram and GrandDad's house with Grandma and Grandpa. G & G's house smelled so good when we walked in - the advantage of cooking a turkey! Although I cannot really complain because I made  grape pie for dessert and our house smelled great from baking that this morning.

As you may guess, we had a great dinner. The turkey was perfect, as were all the side dishes. Here are some photos from our time Thanksgiving meal. Thanks Mom and Dad, it was all wonderful!



Tucker called us from his Thanksgiving celebration in Denver at Natalie's parents house. He was enjoying his time there. My brother Bob called too and we were able to get some details about his pheasant hunting expedition. Apparently Bob went to a hunting reserve of about 500 acres. According to Bob, the people who run the reserve "put out" a dozen pheasants and Bob and buddies went out and shot them. To us it sounded like shooting fish in a barrel, but he assured us it was much more sporting and real work at times.
But, he had a manly kind of a good time, creating fodder for future Neandrathal sessions of beer-drinking and the telling of lies! Bob, I'm glad you had fun-it sure looked like a beautiful day to be outside enjoying Mother Nature with your friends (even if you were shooting those poor birds who didn't stand a chance!).

So, anyone getting up super early tomorrow to shop? Not me. I may walk to the mall later in the morning to get a pair of sneakers that I work in because I can save $30, but I will not be setting an alarm. Plus, I have been given very few gift ideas from my guys, so I have nothing to shop for. 

Once again, Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope all is well.