Happy New Year

It is new year's eve and I am sitting home, in bed, sick. Everyone else is at church and will be enjoying a party later this evening. I guess it could be worse, so I'm trying not to feel too sorry for myself. I'm looking for good things to happen in 2009!

A Winter Wonderland

It has certainly been a beautiful season. Last week, all week was NO SCHOOL due to snow days. Then this week starts the winter break. My lucky family gets 3 weeks off! It's been incredible. This is the coldest it's been since we've moved here, 3 years ago. Yesterday was a bit scarey with the ice. There was still snow, but on top of it all there was ice, very thick and heavy. Everything had icicles hanging down and trees were falling over with the weight of it. Last night there was some brown outs. The lights would flicker and we'd wonder if the electricity would go out. We woke up this morning to find it snowing again and it looks like a fresh blanket of white. It is soooo pretty. I think today might be a good day for playing outside. It is BRRRRRRRR cold!!!

David made the kids "snow cream". The recipe is as follows:
a bowl of clean snow
cream
vanilla
mix in bowl until creamy
ENJOY!

I've been married 19 years....WOW!!!

Today is our 19th year wedding anniversary. Include the 3 years we dated prior to getting married, and we've been together a LONG time! :) I think I'm now married equally as long or longer, than I was single. Time sure flies when you're having fun. Take a look at our 'young' selves! :)

NO SCHOOL....Yeah!!! SNOW DAY!

Today was an official 'snow day', which meant no school for the kids and no work for David. How excited they were!!! It is wonderful and beautiful. We dream of days like this all year long and here it is. The only scary thing is, you really can't drive because the streets are now a sheet of ice. The kids have been playing outside nearly all day. They found a nice little hill to slide down with the other neighbor kids.

"Happy Birthday Jesus"....beautiful!!!

You probably want to turn off my background music below, before playing this clip.

Gospel Christmas 2008

We woke up to our first snow today. It was absolutely beautiful. And since we can't have the CA sunshine, SNOW is the next best thing!!!


What a FUN night! David and I got to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary with a wonderful dinner at Claim Jumper and a gospel Christmas concert with friends. A perfect night!

Shopping on a Friday night

David worked late tonight, so after I finished work the kids and I bundled up (because it's been cold!) and headed to the mall. We enjoyed dinner and caught some good sales. The most shocking thing was the traffic through the mall wasn't anything like I had imagined. I expected lots of hustle and bustle and people shopping late, but at 9PM, it was quiet and slow everywhere. The mall was open til 10PM and sadly for JCP, they were open til midnight...with barely a shopper! We never hit any lines in any of the stores. It was a weird feeling. You can definitely feel the recession has hit hard on everyone. It's scary and sad.

Victoria's 7th Birthday party

This is something new I started last year and it worked out perfectly. Victoria's birthday is December 23rd, 2 days before Christmas. In the past, it's been quite overwhelming for her to have a birthday party and then 2 days later, celebrate Christmas. I think she liked the gifts, but it was waaaay two much! So, by celebrating her birthday early, she can enjoy it without the caos of all the other holiday activities in and around Christmas. It's been working out fantastic!

Friday after school we had a little party with about 8 friends; some from school and most from church. We played games, ate dinner, opened presents and then had cake and ice cream. It went from 4-6pm...perfect!

I'm sure we'll still do a little something special on the 23rd.