The living room

One of my good friends brought it to my attention that according to my pictures of the house, we don't have a living room. I have no idea how I missed it, but here is the living room.

Christmas 2008

I guess it is about time to fill you in about Christmas. I would have blogged while I was at home, but my parents might be the only people in the USA that do not have wireless or even really a well working computer. I was able to steal wireless from some neighbors for a short time, but it was short lived.

So, Christmas was amazing. As tradition stands, all the girls in the family were given blinking Christmas light necklaces and all the boys were given blinking Rudolph noses to wear. This was just the start of festivities. I really enjoy Christmas with my family. I think everyone in my family is a little eccentric and with that comes and enjoyment in giving quirky gifts. This year, those gifts included slippers you wear that are supposed to clean your floors (given by Nancy and my mom without the other knowing that they were going to be giving them), glammed up dish washing gloves, decorative hangs and pulls for fans, etc., and Zach and I gave away some bottles that we found in our attic when we moved it. One of the best parts about this Christmas was my cousin Lilly. This was her first Christmas to get the opening of gifts and Santa. She brought a new level of enjoyment this year.

Mom wearing the glammed up dish washing gloves with her matching hat she received.

Buckie creating new ways of using his decorative hangs.

Lilly and Barkley. Lilly is wearing her blinking necklace.

The time at home ended with my mom, aunt, sister and me going through my grandmother's clothes that no longer fit her. We went through over 270 pieces of clothing while I was home (my mom, aunt and sister had already gone through at least 300 more items a few weeks ago). We were documenting everything before we donated them because there were so many pieces and a lot of them were really nice (I mean like silk suits). It was really nice to spend that time together sorting through the clothing, recalled memories of certain outfits and just overall the lady that my grandmother was and is. My grandmother's memory is fading, but I am glad I was able to come together with my family and recall all that she has given us through the years.

That is most certainly not all of my Christmas experiences, but just an overview. All I can say is it was amazing.

Oops

I spoke too soon. The other car decided not to start this afternoon, so it looks like it will need to be towed tomorrow.

What is going to go wrong next?

I will catch up on the holidays soon, but first I am going to interject some mishappenings.

Since we have moved into the new house, one thing after another has occurred. One of the first things was that we attempted to open a window and it broke and then attempted another one and it broke. With two broken windows, we didn't attempt any others and decided we needed to replace them all since at least two were letting in cold air.

Next, the Blazer started having some issues (bad sounds and check engine light on). Come to find out that the radiator was cracked, the lifters were bad, and some gasket was leaking or something like that. So all that was taken care of.

Then, our garage door opener broke. It is still broken.

Yesterday, our kitchen sink got clogged. We spent probably 4 hours working on unclogging it. And I am glad to say that for about $15 we were able to finally clear the clog using baking soda, vinegar, Liquid Plumber, and 2 plungers (one over each drain).

This morning, we find out we need the brakes replaced on the Blazer.

I am sure there were many more little things, but these are the ones coming to mind right now. I am not sure I can handle much more.

Christmas Lights

Before Zach and I hit the road to Birmingham for Christmas, we attempted to find some good light displays around town. I have been surprised at how few houses have lights up. I don't know if it is due to the economy or if I have never had to try to seek them out before. I searched the internet and found some neighboorhoods to check out. We made some coffee and hot chocolate, packed up the containers of cookies I have made, and then went and picked up Lisa. We headed south of Nashville to pick up Josh from work and began our light tour. We ended up seeing a good variety of lights. Some neighborhoods were fancy and had more elegant lights. While others attempted to stuff as many lights into their yard as they can fit. Here are highlights from the night.

Christmas Spectacular

Yesterday morning, Zach asked me if I wanted to do something that night. I told him sure. He refused to tell me what it was. I tried asking all sorts of questions to figure it out. It was not until we were on the way that I figured it out. He told me it was a big part of my Christmas present and I guessed...Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring the Radio City Rockettes. I have been hearing radio commercials and seeing fliers, etc about it. I never dreamed I would actually get to go. It was amazing. I really enjoyed watching The Rockettes kick. They had a lot of great scenes, but the best was them acting as toy soldiers. The moved perfectly together. It reminded me of my dance days and I began to realize how old I am getting. I am positive that I cannot move like that anymore. In addition to the Rockettes, at the end of the show there was a living nativity. I thought it was done very well. AND, there were live camels that walked around on stage. It was awesome:D Thank you Zachary!

The Living Nativity(not a great pic, but you can see the camels)

Waiting for the show to begin.

Farewell Drifters Christmas Party

On Tuesday night, we had our annual Farewell Drifters Christmas Party. We hosted it at our house this year. The activities included lots of eating, Christmas song game, and white elephant gift exchange. We were very excited to have all FD and their wives/girlfriend as well as Travis and Ryan and Cabrina. I think everyone had way too much to eat and a lot of fun at the party, but that is speaking from my own perspective. The best part was the white elephant gift exchange. I am pretty sure that Zach and I hit the jackpot with the gift exchange. There a little bit of a battle over Trevor's Mexican Santa, but I ended up with it in the end. We also ended up with some kind of crazy dancing twister game that I can't wait to try. This might not sound like the best gifts in the world, but in comparison of the options, they won out big time. Here is a picture of the amazing Santa and of everyone who was at the party.

Happenings over the past couple weeks

This time is year is crazy busy, but so much fun. I am no good at this keeping up with the blog thing. I have a lot more respect for those of you who keep up with it. I am going to try to catch you up.

First, I had my, I believe, first ever white Thanksgiving break. Upon getting up in IL on Sunday morning following Thanksgiving, there were several inches of snow on the ground. Unreal I tell you. Unreal.

Next, we returned home to bloody paw prints in our new home leading to a strange cat lying on our bed. We have heard and/or seen this same cat several times since then. This could be many stories within itself, but I will leave you all to wonder. Because of these occurrences, Sheba (our cat) will have to come home to Birmingham with us for Christmas since we cannot leave the cat door open for the other cat to invade our home again and Sheba needs the cat door for restroom purposes.

We spent the rest of the week trying to decorate frantically for Christmas and attempt to make the house presentable. My mom and aunt arrived on Friday to deliver a few pieces of furniture, plus more Christmas decor to help us get ready for a party on Sunday. They stayed for less than 24 hours and headed out. On that Sunday, December 6th, we hosted the salad portion of our neighborhood's progressive dinner. It was a lot of fun and really motivated us to get our house in working order in just over one month of being handed the keys.

The following day, Monday, Zach's parents came in town for two days. They were great company and it was exciting to share our home with them. While they were here, Zach and his dad put a light in the attic and added a light switch to turn it on. Quite nice! I am very impressed with my hubby.

This past Sunday, December 14th, I cleaned the gutters out on our part of the house and hung icicle lights along the front gutters. This was my first time ever to hang up Christmas lights and I did it on my own while Zach was preparing for the Christmas program at our church. (Sheba watched from her ladder as I was on my ladder)

That night, Zach performed a beautiful song at our church's Christmas program. He did an unbelievable job:D

Then today, I came home and pulled out some paints I bought with some birthday money and painted what I think is the first painting I have ever done apart from school. I don't think it turned out half bad. I left it to dry while I went out to dinner with some co-workers and came home to find it just as wet as I left it. I looked up some information and come to find out oil paints take weeks to dry.

Well, that is my catching up. I hope you enjoyed. Maybe I will be more with in the next couple of weeks, but no promises.