The Black Hole of Time

I honestly do not know where time goes. It is as a big a mystery as those missing socks from the dryer.

Oh well, it is not for me to understand fully, this side of heaven. But time has surely slipped away from me so far this year. I haven't blogged in 5 months and due to that fact, I am sure no one is even going to be reading this. Regardless, I am back.

To make it simple, here is a list of highlights from the past 5 months:

1. Had some cosmetic surgery on a certain two parts of my body that are much happier being smaller.
2. Celebrated Jonah's 4th birthday, at Chucke Cheese, Where a Kid can be a Kid!
3. Celebrated Seth's 13th birthday with a basement full of other rowdy teenage boys, 3 of whom then spent the night in said basement. (Wow! I am the mom of a teen! UNbelievable!)
4. During the past few months we have enjoyed 6 snow days from school. Yep, I have the photos to prove it.
5. Celebrated Randy's 42nd birthday at Dave and Busters in March.
6. Signed up to be a part of a short term mission team to Peru in June. God help!
7. Loved Easter and all the reminders of hope and assurance we have of eternal life.
8. Spent time with the youth group, even having a girls overnight here at my house.
9. Went to Washington DC with the 8th grade class. A blast!
10. Got my hair cut quite a bit shorter and joined weight watchers. Also am using the Y membership regularly.

Happy Holidays to you!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season! They go so fast, don't they? All that lead up and then, BOOM! it is over.
We had an eventful holiday healthwise, with Carol needing an emergency pacemaker on Christmas Eve night. But even with that, I think we all, Carol included, found time to enjoy each other. We never go anywhere on Christmas Day. It is a great tradition to have. Mallory and I always get matching pjs on Christmas Eve, another tradition, and we stay in them all day on Christmas. The kids all enjoyed their gifts and family time on that day. They also enjoyed hearing the Christmas read, as their dad does every year.
New Year's Eve was great! We had a party in our almost finished basement. We had a ton of friends and lots of kids everywhere. Just the way I like it....the more the merrier! Oh and the food was yummy!
My favorite gift to receive this year was a family YMCA membership. Seth and I have been going right after school every day. We do the track and then he plays ball while I use the wellness center. The Y has a fun atmosphere!
My favorite gift to give was Seth's new cell phone. He loves it! About 6 months ago he started caampaigning for it. He even wrote an essay, made copies and posted them all around the house for his dad to see and be convinced. In the end we decided to get him an ice blue Chocolate and so far he has been very responsible.
I hope that your 2008
is truly great!

My Random Thoughts

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Addendum to the cool list

Ok, the santa that turns on my Christmas tree lights by remote did not work for me and is now officially off the cool,things list. Evidently our tree has too many lights (it is a 9 foot tree) and it blew a fuse. The santa is still cool, but only for trees with one set of lights.

My list of cool things

1. Minimizer bras
2. Aldi's popcorn chicken
3. The Dollar Tree
4. ebay (I bought my first item this week!)
5. My Fuji digital camera with the giant lcd screen
6. student teachers
7. Premier jewelry
8. my AVON santa that turns the tree lights on by remote
9. Dr. Seuss
10. writing love notes on a mirror with a vis a vis marker
11. DVR
12. my care group

These are in no particular order.
Now Add your cool things in a commect to this post!

My thanksgiving for Thanksgiving

I had a wonderful holiday weekend. Honestly, this was one of the best in the last 10 years. One of the highlights was spending the night in Walmart, in Bucyrus. My oh so goofy cousins, Donnel and Gina, talked me into this escapade. We went out at around midnight, armed with a blanket and the Black Friday ad. From 1 until about 3, we were about the only shoppers in the store. At 3 or so, more people started showing up. Maps were handed out telling where pallets would be located and the excitement grew. It got a little nerve wracking at 4:30, when I realized there were more people surrounding the pallet then there were items on it. At 5 the announcement was made to "Let the fun begin!" and hands reached from all around me ripping at the shrink wrap on the items. I did manage to get everything I wanted! And I had an adventure to boot! Of course, I wasted all the money I saved when I got pulled over for speeding on the way home to Marion at 6:30 am.
Friday the kids and I went with my in-laws to the Comfort Inn in Bellville to enjoy the water aprk and the Amish restaurant. We stayed until Sunday and had a blast! We taught Larry to play Bull Crap. Good times were had by all!
Of course the Wednseday before Thanksgiving we spent the night with my mom. My three nephews were there also, so all 6 kids enjoyed being together. Mallory especially liked meeting my mom's new dog, Zena. She is a German Shepherd.
All in all, this was one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember!

My youth group

I am a youth group leader at Trinity and it is a blast! We have kids from 6th grade to seniors in high school, and sometimes older. Each gathering is an adventure and I never know what to expect!
Last night, after studying Thomas and his doubts, we went to the "rec room" to play a game. It was a goofy game, in honor of Thanksgiving approaching, that you would more likely see in an elementary gym. It required two kids to be trees with a turkey trapped between them. When Tony would call out a phrase the kids had to switch up either the trees, the turkeys, or all of the group.
I laughed so hard to see the kids all get really into this game. And I mean all the kids, including the high schoolers. We all got quite competitive and no one wanted to quit. It was so much fun!
When this week gets stressful, I will flash back to the fun we had playing turkeys and trees and laugh again!