Christmas Eve 2010!

I guess the Front Range of Colorado was NOT meant to have a white Christmas this year - it was all to the west and the east, every place but US it seems!! With temps in the 60's, it felt more like springtime!! Maybe next year for the white stuff...............

It was an early start for us on Christmas Eve as we not only had to load the car (which was so jam-packed that there wasn't even room for a computer modem that we were supposed to take to Robby!) but we had 4 stops to make before we ever got to Jessi's!! First, to the store as I was short 2 cans of ginger ale for the punch, next stop was coffee for the trip, (yes, another snowy white kiss for me), then to a client's house to deliver a granite vanity top and finally up to Brighton to seal ALL the granite in this 6000 sq ft house - wow, it was AMAZING!!!

But we finally made it to Jessi's place just in time to get all unpacked and head to the afternoon Christmas Eve Service!!

Once again, there was a nativity scene and the kids were amazed at the animals - they WERE cute!!

After church we all headed to Jaime's house for our soup supper - this year we made chicken and wild rice soup and meatball tortellini soup, along with sweet Hawaiian rolls! YUMMY!!

After dinner, we had our tradition of reading the Christmas story out of the Bible and Jessi read "The Night Before Christmas"! We also started a NEW tradition - I have been practicing for a month on the guitar (since I haven't picked it up in years!) and we all sang Christmas carols - definitely a tradition we will continue as the kids loved singing the songs, even though they didn't know a lot of the words!! Since I was playing, I don't have any pictures of that portion of the evening but it was cute having the kids around me!

Then everyone opened their gifts from their other sides of the family - it went WAY too fast and we decided that Christmas morning could be a little tough on the 3 year old boys who LOVED opening as fast as they could!!

What a special Christmas Eve it was - all being together - everyone in good health - and lots of good food and laughter!!

A WHITE SNOWY KISS!

Since we're closed tomorrow for Christmas Eve, I decided to stop and get some coffee this morning - only my regular place doesn't open till 9:00 on Thurdays so I was reduced to going to a place I used to go here in Woodland Park!

When I pulled up to the parking space, there was a sign outside describing their "drink of the day". And that's when I decided to go OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE and order something different than my usual "medium mocha, shot of caramel, skim milk, whip cream"!! Aren't you proud of me Jessi????

I ordered a "White Snowy Kiss" which consisted of white chocolate, white ghiradella, french vanilla flavoring and whip cream!! And guess what?? It is ABSOLUTELY delicious!!

Move over Caramel Mocha, you now have some competition!!!

This COULD Have Been Me!!

I made a Walmart run on Tuesday lunch hour - yes, the store was packed and the parking lot was full!! As I was taking my cart to the car after checking out, I saw one of our insureds walking around with HIS cart, looking a little perplexed. I figured he was trying to find his car.

I unloaded my stash into the car, took my cart over to the cart area and on the way back to my car, I see our client STILL walking around, looking for his car! And I sympathized with him. The poor guy could not remember where he had parked!!

THIS COULD HAVE BEEN ME!!! Because I never remember where I park either, I have to park in the SAME row every time I go to Walmart (or the mall, etc.). That way I always know where my car is - ask the girls where I ALWAYS parked at the Citadel Mall - it was ALWAYS outside of JC Penneys Catalog Department!!

I look at it this way - I'm saving hundreds of brain cells, not having to REMEMBER where my car is!!

Gary's Birthday Weekend!

Please don't tell me it's Thursday already and I haven't even blogged about the weekend????

OK, it IS Thursday and I'm behind.................

We were excited to have GARY, Jessi and kids come down for TWO nights - Gary rarely gets to come because of his work schedule but with his 3 days off for his birthday, they headed on down Sunday morning!!

Jessi and I decided to just RELAX most of the day - I don't even remember what we did to be honest - all I know is it was nice to just sit around and play with the kids!! Kenzie decided to just crawl in the toy box to admire and play with the beads!! Between her and Aleah, these beads get a LOT of use and I'm thinking - hmmmmmmm, I spent HOW MUCH on these two little girls when they probably would have been excited to each get about 6 strands of Mardi Gras beads???

Because I had to work on Monday, Jessi spent the day with the kids and they had a REAL tea party that I had to miss!! But Jessi took some cute pictures so I had to "pretend" I was there!!

The guys went ice fishing for the WHOLE day - they're really both die-hards when it comes to fishing!! Glenn got to try out his NEW ice hut and it worked great - although it really didn't bring them good luck in the fishing department!! They stayed until Glenn had caught a couple of fish and by then it was dark and time to head home - but they had fun and that's all that counts!!

I enjoy reading to the kids so we crawled up on the guest bed and read a while!!

We did have cake and ice cream for Gary's birthday but the picture I took really didn't come out at all - but we had fun singing him Happy Birthday and enjoying his cake!!

Since Mackenzie had received some bath toys from friends, we decided to give the kids a bath so they could try them out!! Mackenzie LOVED her mermaid Barbie and both kids enjoyed the "colored" water from the fizz tablets!!

It was a great weekend as usual and since we get to see them Friday, the withdrawal symptoms weren't bad at all!!!

An Early Gift!!

My hubby works so hard and rarely buys anything for himself and I always make it a point to spend a little extra on Christmas, his birthday, and Father's Day! So his gifts are all wrapped, under the tree, just waiting for Christmas Day.

So over the weekend, him and Robby go to our other property so he can bring back his "ice hut" that he built himself - him and Gary are going ice fishing on Monday!! As soon as I saw that poor, pathetic hut that needed SO much work before he could even take it on Monday, I made the decision to buy him one!! I knew Robby had one of those "pop-up" ones so I emailed him and asked him to find a couple of them that he thought Glenn might like!

I ordered a fishing hut on Monday morning, 7:30am from Sportsman Warehouse out of Utah and it was delivered on Wed. morning, 10:00am from Fed Ex!!! Now that's SERVICE!!

Last night I decided I would give it to him - I put him in the office and shut the door and carried the LONG box to our kitchen island - then proceeded to open the door and sing the "Merry Christmas" song to him with these words: Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Have a Happy Father's Day!!!

He was not only shocked to see it lying there but also very excited!! And of course we decided to practice setting it up - not realizing how much space it would take!!! WHOA - that thing was big!!! I moved the recliner out of the way to give Glenn room to pop it up and it did go up very easily, once we figured where to pull!!

I decided to run up to the loft and take a pic since it was too large to get an idea of how big it really was!! I had ordered a 4 man hut since they were out of 3 man huts and Glenn was glad I had ordered the larger one!!

One of the BEST parts about it: it goes down very easily and all fits very nicely in a long backpack like duffel bag!! I had my doubts that it would fit back in the case but it DID!!!

SO he's ready for ice fishing with Gary on Monday!!! Let's hope they catch some!!

Where or Where is that Forecasted Snow????

How can ALL the weathermen on the evening news be SO FAR OFF in predicting snow?? We were supposed to wake up to at least 5 inches of snow this morning - want to know how much there is??? ZERO - NADA - NOT A FLAKE TO BE SEEN!!

Now I'm not complaining that the snow didn't arrive - I just can't understand why we're placed in a huge snow warning with expected snowfall up to a foot and when I woke up this morning, there was nothing - in fact, the sun is shining as I'm writing this!

I guess the only good thing to come out of this is that Glenn got the tires aired up on the jeep (it's our plow truck) and a battery put in it and had it parked in the garage so it would be all ready for plowing this morning........... my car had to sit outside!

Come on weather people - with all the technology out there, surely you could be a LITTLE closer on your weather report!!

Aleah's Weekend!

My oh my the weekends are flying by and Christmas will be here before we know it!!

Friday night my boss and his wife took us out to dinner at Outback - think bloomin' onion, a filet, garlic mashed potatos, fantastic bread and a chocolate brownie dessert to die for!! YUM YUM!

Robby, Jill and Aleah arrived about 10:30 - past my bedtime - so I had Jill call me from Divide so I could wake up before they started pounding on the door - he he!!

One of the reasons they came down was because Robby was bringing down our new desktop computer and printer!! He is ONE AMAZING tech guy!! Hour after hour he installed everything we needed from the old computer and got us all set up!! I can now also print from my laptop! Gosh, it looks SO MUCH BETTER than the huge old one we had sitting there (which has taken up new residence at Glenn's work!) THANK YOU THANK YOU ROBBY!!!

Jill, Aleah and I just hung out all day Saturday! I had so much fun spending some quality time with Aleah - she loved the beads we had in the toy box and we spent a lot of time just handing her the beads so she could put them on, one at a time!!

Aleah was very well behaved around the Christmas tree too - I was pretty impressed than a 1 and 1/2 year old would leave it alone!! Because our main level is the coldest level in the winter, I suggested we put the pack 'n play in the lower level in Glenn's office and Jill brought her monitors so she could hear her if she woke up in the middle of the night! It worked out great and I need to remember to tell Jessi this for the next time they come down!! Aleah slept like a trooper both nights!!

Although it was windy on Sunday morning, the sun was out in full force and we spent some time on the deck! Aleah had fun pushing the little cart around and swinging!!

They headed back to Ft. Collins after lunch and I headed into town for a baby shower - just one more weekend before Christmas Weekend!!!