Happy Holidays!

Well, the weather here has been extreme. The snow amounts have been approaching record levels again. Then the temperature soared up into the high 40's and most of it melted. Then last night, the temperature dropped and the standing melt water has all turned into ice. Fortunately, most of the driveway is bumpy, so it isn't slick ice. As we were getting loads and loads of snow before Christmas, I thought about taking some pictures, but as pretty as it was, I was getting tired of trudging to the barn through the knee-high plus drifts (I know, I know - I'm short, so knee-high may not seem significant, but really, it is). Nicholas has had two snow days already and two late starts. I certainly hope this does not carry over into January. I MUST find my snowshoes - that would guarantee us no more snow, right?

Christmas was lovely. Nicholas and I spent Christmas Eve with Mom and Dad (Larry had to work). The picture below was taken here at our house Christmas Eve, after we got home. I was taking my yearly pictures of the tree and the packages, when Nicholas had the very good idea of getting in one of the pictures and he assured me he wanted to be on the blog!

Christmas morning, we open packages here, just the three of us. Larry made breakfast before napping for a few hours, after working all the night before. The rest of the day is very laid back. Nicholas and I played Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero for much of the afternoon. Those drums that come with Rock Band are really quite fun to play! (Rock Band was his big gift). One of my favorite gifts is pictured here:

One of those neat "cup-at-a-time" coffee makers (it also makes hot chocolate and tea, which makes it triple-y nice - triple-y, is that a word?) I haven't figured out quite how to justify the negative impact on the environment of all those little individual serving cups, but the resulting coffee tastes FANTASTIC! (That's my American Livestock Breeds Conservancy coffee mug on the coffee maker - get yours here and support endangered breeds of livestock - it's not just the spotted owl that needs saving!)

Well, the Packers finished on a positive note today (beating the Lions, who didn't win a game all season). Here's looking to next season!

Dave, if you read this, I am still working on your socks. Christmas kind of took over my life for awhile there, but I am again working on finishing them up. We're almost there - I'm working on the toe of the second sock, so it will be done any time now!

As I am not a frequent poster, I will wish you all a Happy New Year now and see you in 2009!

Turning Japanese

This is basically the scene in our living room every waking, non-school hour of the day -

As you can see, the stockings are hung by the chimney with care - and the tree is up and decorated. The young rock star in the picture is Nicholas, our now teenage son! Can you believe we are the parents of a teenager? My how the time flies!

We celebrated his birthday with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese with his best friend, Aaron. We gave them a hundred tokens or so and left them to play video games while Larry, my mom and dad and I sat and endured the noise. Noisy places with lots of young children are not really my idea of a night of fun, but Aaron and Nicholas seemed to think it sounded like a good idea. Afterwards, the two boys came home to play Nicholas' Guitar Hero and other assorted video games. Aaron fell asleep before midnight, but I found Nicholas still awake at 4:30 am, still strumming away. The good thing about Guitar Hero is that many of the songs are rock "oldies", so I actually recognize the music! But I am actually starting to get tired of Turning Japanese, as Nicholas has decided that is his new favorite song.

So, the birthday is behind us and we are now on track for Christmas. I have most of my shopping done, but haven't even started on the cookies or the cards yet. But the holiday concert was last night and the junior high basketball team is done for the season, so now we can concentrate on Xmas.

No new knitting news and I haven't done any spinning lately. I am not knitting any gifts (I'm much too smart to get too ambitious with homemade gifts, as I would never finish them in time!!) I have just under two weeks to bake all the cookies, write the Xmas letter and get the cards in the mail, do some housecleaning, wrap the presents - I just may get it done!