Snow and Snuggie fights

Thanks everyone for a wonderful Christmas!  We had lots of fun, even white knuckle driving to Richardson in the snow.  Emma and Bubba still beat everyone by spending 24 hours to get home, should have been a five hour drive.  We had fun with the gift exchange, top steals... the snuggie and cute Christmas ceramic bowl and whisk.  But the best gift, with expressions, was the shock wave pen.  You pressed it and got quite a shock.

Dinner with five courses on Christmas was shrimp cocktail, roasted red pepper soup, tortellini pasta salad, pork loin and vegetables, dessert was a buffet!  Thanks Melissa, Sean, Lynley, Ann Marie and Michael for helping serve the different courses.  

At the last minute I ordered monograms for the girls and had fun finding things to put the on.  See etsy.com and search vinyl car monograms. $4.00!  Sorry, baby Jesus ended up covered by snow.  Love my bronze nativity set.

Merry White Christmas! Dallas, 3 inches of snow!

Merry Christmas!  Shared the holiday with Nickie, Norene, Karl and Chris... Plus Christmas Eve at Joanie's with Sydney, Lynn, Lynley and me.  Took twice as long to get there after church, but had a wonderful time with family and great food!  This picture is Christmas morning and the snow is already melting. Nickie enjoyed her first white Christmas in 84 years.  She spent early morning just lying in bed and watching the wintry white landscape.  More pictures to follow... dinner and gift exchange at our house tonight.  Melissa and Sean, Ann Marie and Michael, Emma, Bubba and Corbin will be joining the group.  Emma and Bubba got stuck in Oklahoma for 24 hours in the storm.  Yawhoo they are here!

Reasons to be a teacher

Melissa and Ann Marie start their Christmas two weeks off this afternoon.  One of the many great reasons to teach.  Spring Break, Christmas Break and SUMMER!!  The kids too of course.  Melissa and Sean volunteer as Make a Wish sponsors.  Moises was one of her students last year that they were able help his family by being their Make a Wish sponsor.  Between extra fund raisers at Melissa's school, one at Ann Marie's school for Moises as well, they raised over $3000.00 to help this family meet their extra needs during Moises cancer treatment.  He is well this year and back in school.  Make a Wish sent them one week ago to Disney World for 5 days.  He is pictured above with his Mom and little sister at the Make a Wish send off party in his classroom.  They are a family of six.

Ann Marie took her students out in the snow earlier this month.  Doesn't happen very often in Texas, so the first thing they did was put their coats back on to go run and play outside before the snow was gone.  The snow probably didn't last past 10:00 in the morning or as soon as the sun came out.

Lynley - four finals down one to go...

Lynley has taken four of her 5 finals and will take her last one for this semester on Wednesday morning.  She is scheduled to work at her job on Wednesday night and she will be home on Thursday!  She can't wait and we can't wait as well.  I have done some more decorating so the house is as festive as it can be when she arrives.

Still wating for Lynley to come home and decorate the tree!  I put only lights and the topper on.  But, I did get to start wrapping presents.  Lynley will be home on the 16th!  Nickie, Mom, Karl and Chris come in on the 24th!  Time for me to get the grocery list ready.  Possibly 17 for dinner on Christmas day.  Will add the finished tree pictures after Lynley and I finish the decorations. 

Gallon of paint and a new room!

The red is the before picture.  I think I was the only one in the family that liked the red room.  So, I have been admiring this color, Latte by Sherwin Williams, that other people have used.  The pictures don't do it justice.  Just think warm cup of coffee with cream.  Wouldn't you want to sleep in that?

It took 5 hours start to finish.  I had to use Kiltz to cover the red, one coat.  I learned that painting the trim first went a lot faster and neater.  I did that by mistake, because I was a 1/2 hour late to the paint store and they were closed, but I had the trim paint already.  The project would have gone a lot faster, but my interior decorator, Lynley was not home to help.  We did her room in two hours together.  I couldn't wait for her to come home for Christmas break, (she will be home on the 16th! Yeah!!)

She has also warned me that we cannot put one ornament on the tree until she gets home.  She did give us permission to purchase the tree without her. Lynley is the official "tree picker outer".  We sent pictures over our phones.  She'll love the one her Dad and I picked out.  We haven't shopped alone for a tree in 25 years!  Pictures of Christmas decorations to follow soon.

29 years and counting!

Lynn and I started our journey together in the summer of 1975. Afer six years of dating long distance between Alexandria, Natchitoches and Ruston, Louisiana we married on February 28, 1981.  Now almost 29 years later, 3 beautiful daughters, two wonderful son-in-laws, two states... we are happily, joyfully living out each day in Coppell, Texas!

So why a blog?  Ann Marie took a course last summer for continuing education and created my frist blog for Ooohlala Floral.   I then saw that a high school friend of Ann Marie and Melissa's had one, Shelbi Watten Rampy.  I read hers and followed some of her favorite blogs and I was hooked.  I don't twitter or facebook, well I do confess, I have Ann Marie's profile password, so if you are her friend you are mine!  But, just like the morning newspaper of the past, I now read news online each morning and check my favorite blogs.

TERMINOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY - 29 years ago there were no computers, cell phones or email.  I know if you are under 30 and reading this you are wondering how we ever survived in the old days.  I watched color TV arrive, but I won't go that far back.  29 years ago, to get this message to you,  I would have had to use a typewriter, gasp (no spell check or backspace to correct mistakes), copy onto a printer that you would roll the copy around a cylinder and then wet copies with purple ink, smelly ink, would print off and smear if you touched them too soon.  I can't remember the name of those copiers. If you can be the first one to add comments below with the correct name of the printer, you win!  Then I would use US mail,  with a 10 cent stamp (googled 1975 rate, really), hand address each envelope, mail and a week later you would have received my letter.  Fast forward to present time, now when you become a follower to my blog you can get an immediate email prompt that I have created a new posting,  Simply amazing, thanks Mr. Billionaire Bill Gates!  I am a blogger, you can be a follower and fellow blogger, just click on the link at the left side column.  Come and join the party, it really can be!