Merry Christmas!

Not exactly how I expected things to go this year, but Merry Christmas anyhow. 

Back in North Carolina

What a draining week.  A huge thank you to everyone who prayed and sent healing thoughts my way…honestly, it was the fastest disappearing sore throat I think I’ve ever had.  It started Friday evening and when I woke up on Saturday morning after a long night of not being able to sleep because of not feeling good, my throat was swollen and I was exhausted.  I took advil and tylenol with me and got on the road with mom and dad about 7:30, and by the time we got to Virginia, my throat had already started feeling better and by the end of the day, it was only mildly swollen and a little hard to swallow but not nearly as painful as the usual sore throat.  Usually it’s at least a 2-3 day thing when my throat hurts like that, but this time it was only about 24 hours.  Thank God. 

Anyway, I rode up with mom and dad on Saturday and then KC flew up on Monday evening and I flew home with him on Wednesday night after the funeral.  It (the funeral) was tough.  I don’t really want to go back over that part again.  But I did want to get back on here and let everyone know how much I appreciated your prayers. 

Also, I don’t want to fly Delta again if I can ever help it.  LOL.  We were supposed to be home by 10:30 on Wednesday night and didn’t end up getting back until after 1am.  Fog, musical airplanes, double booked seats on a full flight…I’m just glad we GOT home.  lol. 

Except for the sad circumstances of the trip, it was good to see the family up there again…my dad’s siblings, plus the extended family members that you don’t see until someone is getting married or there’s a funeral.  Still sad, but you remember all the happy moments and still find something to smile about.  We spent a lot of time looking through all Grandma’s photo albums and I put together a few pages of pictures of Grandma to put up at the receiving of friends.  Here’s some pics…I didn’t get any of my dad’s sister…she wasn’t at the funeral home yet when I took these of my dad and his brother (and brother’s family) and us…anyway.

It was pouring the rain all day. 

Anyway…next subject…I’m so annoyed right now…watching Sound of Music and KC keeps making fun of it.  LOL.  I am much more comfortable with this emotion.  Sorry…I know I have a twisted personality.  =)  Follow every rainbow, til you find your dream…..

I dream of not being annoyed OR sad.  Where’s the rainbow I follow for that??  LOL.  Like I said…twisted.  HA. 

So…”twisted” is getting off here to devote all my attention to the Sound of Music…and smacking KC every time he makes fun of it….goodnight. =)

Thank you

I appreciate your prayers…more than anyone could know.  I do have a special favor to ask though, if you think about it, I could really use your prayers…I’ve come down with a whopping head cold complete with sore throat and we’ve already got our flights booked for the funeral and right now I’m miserable.  If you could just pray that I can get over this really quickly so it doesn’t make an already tough week tougher… 

Thank you all so much. 

No Words

October 1925 - December 16, 2011

Note To Self

Next time you decide to write the Christmas letter in a post and then just write the address in the christmas card for anyone who wants to read it….

RESIST!

Or else print off labels.  By the 35th time of writing out http semicolon slash slash alwaysfaith dot blogspot dot com slash 2011 slash 12 slash christmas-post dot html, you will be kicking yourself for that dumb idea.  Consequently, at least half the Christmas cards will probably never know about the Christmas post because you will start just leaving it out of every fifth one..and then every third one…and then every one…hahaha. 

And that’s where I’ve been all week…trying to get all the cards done, trying to get gifts made, trying to get appointments taken care of….you know…that sort of thing.  And I have photos right now that need to be edited and two of the three sessions need to be wrapped up by tomorrow…but my eyes are crossing right now…so I guess I’ll just get up early in the morning.  =)

(Where are those cross-eyed smiley faces when you need one?)

Night.

The Christmas Post

Ho, Ho, Howdy, ya’ll.  We still don’t have any snow here, but since we used up our region’s decade allotment of “white christmas” last year, I don’t expect to see any until at least January.  LOL.  Not that I’m complaining…I like our region most of the time. 

Anyway, I hope everyone has had a great year…we sure have!  I usually send a small Christmas update in the Christmas cards, but this year, I’m just sending the link to this post.  I’m not sure how this is going to work, since I’m usually forced to edit and rewrite over and over until I have it down to a small paragraph, and on this blog…I have LOTS of space…it’s like packing for a plane trip versus taking a road trip…lol. 

But I’ll try to keep it short and sweet, and if you want to REALLY know how our year went (if you don’t regularly read my blog and know this stuff already)….well, you can just click over there in the archives and read back month by month.  I’ll just try to hit the highlights.  Haha. 

So this year wraps up our 9th year as a couple and we celebrated our 10th anniversary on a cruise to Mexico.  This year also marks the end of our 2nd year in this house, and our puppies are now getting close to 20 (in human years…lol).  As fast as they grew, it feels like our kids have grown just as rapidly, since Munchkin (our girl’s nickname on the blog) is now a second grader, and K-man (our boy’s nickname on the blog) is now also enrolled at the same school in Kindergarten (since his birthday fell after the cut-off).  From September to November, we had a family of deer basically living in our backyard (they were out there at least 5-8 times a week).  We took our summer vacation in August and it was terrific…we loved spending time at the ocean and a couple friends were able to go with us, which was really nice.  And finally (although I’m probably forgetting something, but I wanted to keep this short and sweet anyway), we had an overabundance of water in our basement in February, and a funny story in July to go along with it. 

I think that will do it for the highlights.  I didn’t blog very much earlier in the year, so I’m sure there are highlights I’ve forgotten.  That’s one of the main reasons why I have a blog, you know…because my memory stinks…now I just need to remember to make use of my memory assistant.  And I have gotten better about it, so now just to keep the momentum up.  

And speaking of momentum, I have to get this posted and get back to my to-do list.  Too much to do, too little time. 

Hope you and yours have a very:

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

And for those of you who visit here regularly, this doesn’t mean I’m not blogging again til January, by NO means.  =)  At least, not if I can help it.  =)

Winken, Blinken, & Nod

There’s a story to that title….I don’t remember the story, but it seemed like an appropriate title simply for the fact that I’m all three at the moment.  LOL. 

It has been a day. 

First I worked on finishing the Christmas cards.  MAKING them, that is…they are not addressed.  That’s a whole NOTHER item on the to-do list. 

Yeah.  78 of them.  Hello, future readers of this blog, directed here by my Christmas card, if you are going back through the archives and find this post…just wanted to say that if you got one of those handmade cards from me, I hope you know you’re special.  ;-)  And if you didn’t get one of those handmade cards from me (and just happened to stumble on this blog by accident), you are probably still special, I just didn’t have your address.  Love, tired but miraculously un-paper-cutted, ME.  =P

Hahaha. 

Also today, I made shredded ranch chicken flautas (I’m not sure what those are, I just saw a recipe for them and very loosely followed it from memory…which might mean that it was nothing like flautas and more like chicken buritos…hahaha). 

And I let the kids hang out in my craft room and cut paper and color (holding head and moaning…that was torture for my perfectionist self) Just keep doing your thing, Faith, and don’t go help them make cards so that they will actually LOOK like what they’re trying to replicate….yes, I gave myself a version of that pep talk at least once.  Maybe a million.  And I never exaggerate.  EVER.  Much.  Moving on. 

Let’s see, I also took a shower and fixed my hair for a family snapshot on our front step.  And then I took the picture….well, actually the camera took it and I just ran around and jumped in….and LOOKED like I ran around and jumped in.  And then the kids were fake smiling and we had to give them a few lessons on smiling…in the freezing cold and then—I totally should copy this into the “christmas letter post” which shall be mentioned in the christmas card so everyone will get the backstory on the photo…lol.

I also edited said photos.  I got two that are reasonable.  Not great, by ANY stretch of the imagination but since I’m my photographer, I feel like I have the right to criticize.  HAHA.

ANYWAY.  I’m tired.  And…blink. blink.            blink.        

Nod.

Whaa—huh?  Oh, no, I’m not sleeping, just restin’ my eyes. 

But I think I will call it a night now.  =)   

In A (Coco)Nutshell

This was such a great vacation…I loved every bit of it, but I don’t have any idea where to start writing about it.  I should have taken a pen and paper and wrote down things from each day but obviously it’s too late for that now.  I guess I’ll just post the pictures and see where I get from there.  =)

		Anniversary Cruise VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Um…now I guess I have to figure out how to go into the album and edit the captions…lol.  And then maybe I’ll just come back and wrap this up with a list of unforgettables.  LOL. 

Unforgettables: (not in any order…hey…it’s late and my brain is already asleep)

1. The Mayan Battery.  So we’re climbing up the 80 steps to the Mayan ruins and this kid behind us spots a discarded AA battery on the ground.  “Mom, look, it’s a battery,” he said.  And my husband, who overhears him, says to the kid, “Oh, that’s a MAYAN battery!”  So the kid turns back to his mom, “Mom, is that really a Mayan battery????  That was a joke, wasn’t it, Mom?!”  We are still laughing about it. 
2. All the formal dinners.  Especially the last one, which we spent laughing almost the whole time at goofy stuff.  Our dinner friends, Kelly and Collin (her son) were laughing as much as we were…that’s always fun!  All of the nightly dinners were great though.  The other couple at our table (John & Sherry) were really nice, too, even though they were only there a couple of the nights.  And we even enjoyed ourselves the first night when it was just KC and I at our assigned table. 
3. Snorkeling on the coral reef.  Even though the disposable underwater camera didn’t really show all the cool things I thought I was catching, we did see a sea turtle, a small shark, a stingray, a few Dory’s, barracuda, Nemo, and a dolphin (on the way back, on the Catamaran).  And the water was so clear…way clearer than the underwater camera showed. 
4. Country Strong
5. The Vortex of Terror (basically on one end of the top deck on the back of the ship, the wind was REALLY bad on the last day…worse there than anywhere else on the ship).  Let’s just say that I had to comb my hair a few extra times…and…um…I had a very light, full skirt on.  Thankfully, the vortex of terror was unoccupied when we walked through, so there weren’t any witnesses.  Except KC, who thought it was funny.  LOL. 
6. Looking out and seeing nothing anywhere except…WATER! 
7. Trying to use the bathroom in the catamaran.  *gulp*  It was literally a bucket with a hole in the bottom.  You couldn’t put any paper in it and it had no seat.  AND the boat was rocking enough that you had to hold on to something to stand up…probably would have made a great funniest home video.  LOL!
8. Speaking of bathrooms, it was pretty challenging to take showers in the 3x3 shower while the ship was rocking back and forth.  Not quite as challenging as the catamaran bathroom, but still…a little different. =)
9. Walking through the centrum on the first full day at sea and hearing the live band playing the song that the band was playing on the Titanic – as it was sinking. 
10. Being old people and going to bed before midnight every night…but then we slept really good because the rocking was really soothing….except for the pillows, which were too flat to use one, and too thick to use two.  We both came home with cricks.  LOL.  Oh well.  Totally worth it. 

And that’s pretty much our trip in a (coco)nutshell.  LOL.  Okay, so there really was a lot more than that, but I am so tired and this post has taken all day.  =)  So…in a nutshell, loved it and can’t WAIT to do it again.