Merry Christmas!

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas!  We invited some of my family over Christmas Eve after mass in Lawler and were lucky that quite a few of them were able to come. We just had soup and sandwiches and some snacks – but it was really nice. It’s one of those times when everything is so hectic and then you get to stop and just sit down and visit. Very nice. We never did get any snow for Christmas and my one nephew even had to cancel his snowmobiling trip up North because they didn’t have any either! That’s bad news for him because he just got a brand new snowmobile and is so anxious to try it out. Now that Christmas is over I don’t want a whole lot of snow, but some for him to get out with his sled while school is on break would be nice.

I got up early on Christmas to finish some things in the kitchen and then the guys woke up. We had William open his gifts up first and like every other 17 year old – he figured out most of his gifts, but I was able to surprise him on some of them. Daryl was next and I did get him a few things that he wasn’t expecting, so that’s always nice. Then comes me. I got some new PJ’s and socks (which I LOVE getting at Christmas) and then Daryl surprised me with a iPad2! I wasn’t expecting it at all and you know what? I absolutely LOVE IT! The laptop that I use is William’s old one and the back part of it is broke. I wanted to put some duct tape on it to keep it together and that sure didn’t go over very well. I said that it was OK, but I’m glad that he didn’t listen too hard at that. I’m still working on what applications that I want on it and trying to transfer some of my favorite web sites to it. I’m getting closer to what will work for me, but man oh man do I have a lot to learn! William sometimes just looks at me like I grew up on Mars or something because of my learning curve. (or lack of it!)

We did hear from Kyle on Christmas morning and what a good feeling that was. He’s traveling alone and is staying by himself in hostels so that’s just a huge concern for me.  I know a lot of people think that there is so much technology in the world – but when you have someone from  your family in another country, it sure is nice to have a message on the internet saying that they made their travels just fine and will touch base later on with you. He comes back to Korea New Years eve I think. I’ll be anxious to hear about his adventure and see some pictures. He is getting so interested in different types of pictures and is finding his own style. His style is very simple and is mostly of people and architecture, so Rome will be filled with tons of stuff to take pictures of.

Christmas afternoon and evening was spent at my Mom’s in St. Lucas. Her day was filled from after dinner to way past supper. When I was talking to her I said that she had company for over 10 hours and she told me – ‘Yea, it was great!’.  The day at Mom’s was filled with so much food and kids running around. I just laughed because at one point there was maybe 15 (?) different conversations going on in the room and I don’t know if anyone was on the other side listening to any one of them! Kids were laughing and playing while some of the other smaller kids were playing with the boxes that the gifts came in. Isn’t it funny that the boxes make the best toys? Well these kids took a box and stepped inside and made a train out of it. They would circle the room and making sounds like a train. Too funny! But we really had a good time and I think everyone’s clothes fit and gifts were perfect. It’s such a big job getting ready for Christmas and my Mom buys gifts for at least 45 people. I don’t know how she can do it. I have trouble just trying to figure out what to buy 3 people in our family!

So today I did not do not much at all! I slept in and was still in my new PJ’s until 10:00 AM! I was worried that someone might stop over, so finally I did change. I did some laundry and worked on my new iPad most of the day. You know – putting in birthdays and basketball game schedules, trying to figure out how to load some photo albums, …. important stuff. Daryl and William worked outside on putting on some support brackets that were made for a couple of our sheds. The corner cement had a couple of small cracks on it and even though it probably won’t move – Daryl wanted to brace them anyway. They drilled some pilot holes for the bolts and were able to get the Roadhouse done. While they worked on that, the dogs were enjoying just laying out in the sunshine and trying to stay out of the wind. For Christmas they got another dog bed because they both try to claim the one that we had before. It looks like the new one is going to be Apollo’s. He won’t let Reno near it.

Old dog bed - looks kinda tough

The dogs just hanging out in their new beds

Adding brackets to the Roadhouse

I can hear that it has started to rain outside. That’s not usually a good thing in December around here. If it gets colder outside, it’ll freeze and there’s a good chance to loose our power to our farm. Oh well, I guess it’s a good thing that we have plenty of leftovers in the refrigerator if that happens and I think I’ll start our fireplace just in case.