Christmas Wrap Up

Our holiday started on Christmas Eve. Our tradition is that we go to my Mom and Dad's for hors 'doeuvres. After we eat we then play some sort of game or cards- this years choice was dominoes. Lets just say it was not my night. We laughed so hard and had a great night.

After the game we headed to our next tradition- My In Laws. They go to midnight mass and then we open presents. We did not attend church this year. We were happy that it was not snowing this year. Amber got a Gateway Laptop and is totally thrilled. Zachary got a guitar and can't wait to start lessons. Neil got dress shirts and I received money for my Zune or IPod. Oh and I also received a new set of Pearls. Santa was good to us at the J's.
When we got home at 1 am we decided that we would open our presents at home and then we could sleep in. Amber received this:

We told her that it didn't come in and so she was totally surprised!

Zachary opened this:

in case you can't tell its a Zune ( MP3 player).
Christmas day we went over to my parents again for dinner and presents with my family. For the first time,in a very long time we all were together. We had an awesome traditional meal. Then Amber and Troy played Dance Dance Revolution- this was there next match up after Thanksgiving and the Guitar Hero game. Everyone got into the fun and soon we broke out Hillary's Guitar Hero. What a blast that was- we even talked Jim into playing.

I hope you all had as much fun as we had!

Here's to next year and what it may bring (hopefully a new house for us)!

Adventure Update

Took Cara and family to airport yesterday morning to catch their flight. They did finally leave Michigan- an hour later then they were supposed to. Got a text message last night of Cara's smiling face. Glad they made it to warmer weather. Will let you know when they make it home- as weather man is saying snow again on Sunday- the day they are flying home.

Adventure

Today I was supposed to take Cara, Jason and kids to airport for their morning flight to Orlando. Here's a run down of how that went- Jason called at about 8 am- They were on their way but as they were driving here they got a message that their flight was postponed. They found this out after waking up extremely early, getting pushed out of her aunts subdivision and driving the horrific roads. They had already rescheduled for later that afternoon. So what to do with 6 extra people was my task. Thankfully my Mom is great and let me bring all 6 to hang out until flight. They came by here and I jumped in van and off we went to Mom's. We spent the day chatting and watching kid movies. Jason checked new flight statues about 3 hours before new flight time and it said still on time. Jason went out to get car ready and Cara and I started rounding up kiddos when..... phone rang cancelled flight, again. So off to the phone and computer to find new flight. New flight tomorrow mid morning. What to do now? Hillary called her hotel and got them a room for the night. We loaded up and off we went. Neil brought food and then we swam. Neil, the kids and I left them so they could get a good nights sleep and we will try again tomorrow!

Youtube

What did we ever do without it?

I don't browse it very often but Neil does. You can loose hours watching youtube. These are some of my recent favorites- Torn and Thriller. Last week Kate had Zach and I watching this , this and this .

What are your favorites? Tell me and I will post them here for all to view.

Rein-mingo

What?- you are saying.

This is Rein-mingo

Let me start with the story. My Aunt Judy is obsessed with Flamingo's. Not sure that obsessed is a strong enough word! Back to the story- She decided that she would turn lawn flamingo's into Santa's reindeer this year-hence the name Rein-mingo. She even painted the "lead" one with a red nose! The picture doesn't do them justice. They are so cute and a head turner.

Elfed

I have seen this on several posts. I finally got around to doing one of us.

click on the picture

B-ball

Summit has a new Girls Basketball coach. Coach Ron brings great things to our school. He held tryouts and really wanted to make a JV team, unfortunately not enough girls. He had to make cuts at that point. Amber was worried that she would be cut - however to her surprise she made the Varsity team. Coach Ron told her that she was a strong JV player so he didn't want to cut her because he couldn't make a JV team. He plans on working with her and making her a strong Varsity player. We have already seen changes in her.

We have had 3 games so far- First game was in Dundee, who we lost to ( I can't remember the score). Our Second game was at West Village, this game we won 43 to 20. Our Third game was at Britton-Macon and again we lost- score was 32 to 50. We have two more games scheduled this week.

Go Lady Dragons!

Busy weekend

Not sure that it was any busier than our week. Friday my aunt and i went out to Rock Financial Showplace for the Holiday show and Marketplace. Not what I expected but we still had a great time. I purchased Neil and Hillary's gifts. So productive day. Then Amber had a basketball game in Detroit (more about that in another post).

Saturday had to go get items for our annual cookie baking day. I stopped and picked Josh up on my way.

Josh and Zach helped me make these- S'mores ( BIG thanks to Cara for the recipe). They are jumbo marshmallows dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed graham crackers.
The boys also helped me make the dough and cut out the sugar cookies.

Sunday- I picked up my Aunt Judy and we headed to my moms - way too early. My cousin Tina and Missy were waiting for us. My mom ended up having to work so Josh, Dave and Hillary stood in for her! This year we each had to make one type of cookie at home and then bring all the ingredients for the second. We spent ALL day baking. Baking makes you so tired.