Looking Good, How Long Will it Last?

3:35 PM Posted In Edit This 2 Comments »

The Decorations are Down...........

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The decorations are stored for next year, the carpets are vacuumed, the tables are dusted, the music is put away, the exercise equipment is given its place of honor again, the wrapping supplies are back under my bed, the garage is cleaned out once again, the movie is rented and the Martinelli's is chilling in the refrigerator! Ta Da! The new year must be coming!

What will you be doing for this celebration of saying farewell to the old and ringing in the new?
Irish Toast: In the new year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, never in want.

Benjamin Franklin: Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.

Anonymous: A new year's resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other!

But this year I hope that we all will find more peace, health and happiness throughout the year!

Happy New Year!

It's That Time of the Year Again!

11:38 AM Posted In Edit This 0 Comments »


Whew! The oldies are a sweatin'!

Cousins

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I am so happy that Brandon has a cousin, Alex, that is so close in age to him. They are great friends. Alex lives in California and so during school breaks, we do our best to hook them up to hang out together. They make lots of plans texting and talking on the phone and going back and forth on their facebook accounts. They sometimes seem like opposites, and yet it works because they are good buddies. We went to their house for Thanksgiving and they schemed to get back together for Christmas break. They had plans, like two dances to go to and taking Brandon's little pocket bike there to ride in their dirt tracks across the street from their house. So this afternoon we loaded the pocketbike into the back of our car and headed to Blythe, CA, the halfway point between our houses. Sharon, my sister, met us there where we transferred the bike into the trunk of her Toyota Camry. Now that was an impressive trunk because it fit right in with no trouble at all and some room to spare even! I think they are planning on some good fun!

Threat of a freeze

9:45 AM Posted In Edit This 1 Comment »
So, it got cold last night, really cold. Only I did not notice it, all snuggled in my warm bed. It was not until I crawled out of that warm bed that I realized how cold the house was. I guess I will have to break down and turn on the furnace! How ridiculous is that? When I first moved to AZ, we laughed at how everyone thought it was cold, anything under 70 degrees. But, I must say, 10 1/2 years later, it IS cold under 70 degrees and so I will turn on the furnace. There is a threat of a freeze tonight. So we will go out tonight with our spare sheets and blankets and cover our tender vegetation, that cannot handle freezes. We have lost two trees to freezes in the past. This "global warming" sure has made Arizona colder these past few years. I am worried about my citrus, that took years to develop fruit. Now with its bounty, I want it to last. I do think citrus are a little hardy. Still, I will cover them up. Tim talks of removing the Christmas lights from the house and covering them over the trees and keeping them warm that way. Some years that has really worked, as long as the neighbors don't mind seeing the color of Christmas lights shining from our trees long into January.
Speaking of citrus, we ate our first lemon on Christmas Eve. we sliced it and shared it with our guests to put in their water if they wanted. I was not sure if it was ready for picking but it was delicious. Our trees are so heavy with fruit, some are bending and touching the ground.
Imagine my surprise, upon moving to AZ, to find citrus was a winter fruit. I never knew that. I have wondered at why lemons are ready to go in January yet we love to drink lemonade in the summertime!!! I guess that is why I thought citrus was a summer fruit!













Hmmm, maybe I will go pick a grapefruit. Sounds kind of good right now, refreshing!

Christmas Day

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Christmas day brought a few raindrops and a sleep in. I remember the days when I barely had the gifts wrapped the night before, dropped into bed, then before I knew it, three little boys were tromping into our room to see if they could go out and see if Santa had paid them a visit. They would climb into our bed and we would read the Christmas story from the scriptures and we would try to begin our day remembering the reason for our celebration. The excitement could barely contain them.
These days, they stay up much, much later than "Santa" and thus often have to be woken to begin the day. I awoke early, in spite of my late night, but allowed myself the luxury of just laying there. Eventually I got up and showered, even getting my hair dried and my makeup on before there were any creatures stirring. (Except Tim who had gotten up soon after I did). Brandon was next, crawling out of bed around 9 AM. He asked if we could wake Cameron. I asked him if he wanted a shower first. Brandon takes lots of showers. ( I am not complaining!) He opted to get his shower done and we finally got Cameron to come out of his room about 9:45.
With a chill in the air and overcast skies, we turned on our Christmas lights and gathered and read the Christmas story.
All of us commented on how different Christmas "feels" these days. I am quite sure some magic is gone when you mature and grow up. You start to realize that the holiday season is less about Santa and gifts and more about love and peace and family and friends. These are the things that bring true joy. As gifts are forgotten over the year, these memories live on.


Thus, it was with happiness, that after a very relaxing day, we were invited to the Gratil's house to share Christmas dinner with them and Susan's parents. It is great to have good friends around when we don't have family to celebrate with. We enjoyed entirely too much food again and learned a new silly card game to play with a large group of people.









All too soon we found ourselves watching the clock, waiting to for 6:45 to come so that we could receive our phone call from Chris from Kentucky. Since we knew he would call while we were at the Gratil's house, we planned for his call to come on Tim's cell phone and await we did. He said he would be calling at 8:45 his time. I have been waaaaay off with time zones these days and thought there was two hours difference and there was only one. So, we waited, and waited, for an entire hour and at 7:45 on the dot, Chris made his call home. The part of Kentucky he was in was only an hour's difference! We had all been sitting waiting and he was right on time! We passed the phone around and had lots of laughs as we listened to Chris' stories and his southern twang. He sounds just like his uncle Dave from Houston!

Thanks for the great family, friends, and food that made this holiday a special event in our lives!

Christmas Eve

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On the Eve of Christmas we celebrated our time with a huge dinner, with way too much food and lots of good friends. The day was busy, and chilly, and feeling a lot like Christmas. There was the hustle and bustle of working and food preparation, and worrying that the roast would be overdone, or underdone, or how the gravy would turn out. But it all came together and we enjoyed the feast, and the desserts, and the great company. Thanks to the Wightmans and Helferstays for helping us celebrate and ring in Christmas! PREPARATIONS



CELEBRATIONS





Afterwards, as is traditional in our family, we share our gifts we have each thoughtfully planned for each other and enjoy guessing what is wrapped in each box. Cameron is the champ at guessing and has a pretty high guessing percentage! And finally everyone is old enough to keep quiet their surprise until that night. So we all enjoy the suspense and excitement that comes along.























But we laugh as each of us opens a gift from Brandon he announces the great bargains he got on his gifts by announcing what he paid! It was hilarious if you were there! And it was so like Brandon to feel the need to share with us his thriftiness. And yet, he managed to select a perfect gift for each of us! And, in case you were wondering what was in the packaged that was labeled To Mein Mutter: Aus Dein Son: here it is!

Pinching Packages

4:32 PM Posted In , , Edit This 1 Comment »
Is Brandon trying to disguise his presents by writing in German, hoping we cannot figure out who they are for, and thus not be able to guess what they are? Here is one of his gifts he placed under the tree. Who do you think it is for?

Happy Be-lated Birthday, Shannon!!!

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This video is my apology for being late in remembering your birthday, Shannon. Hope it was a good one!





New Look

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My blog is trying to get a new look. This is not as easily done as I thought it would be. I am impressing myself with my newly learned skills, but I am sure of one thing, and that is that the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know at all! I guess that is just how life goes, right? So, bear with the changes, and the missing pictures and hopefully we will see progress as promised, you know, like our Department of Transportation always says!!!!!!
PS I love these rainy days!

Tough Competition

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We all have our games, the ones we are good at. This game goes to Tim, who seemed to keep on winning! Cameron consistently wins at "Trouble"! I remember when he liked to play that and the game "Sorry". Wonder why?







A Little Package Arrived

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Yesterday, I opened my mailbox. Here in AZ, we have pods of mailboxes. Prior to moving to AZ, I was used to a box at the end of your driveway, no lock, and when you had outgoing mail, you raised a little red flag and the delivery person knew to take mail out for before putting yours in.
It was a simple and workable process.
Now our boxes are at the end of our street, a whole group of them, with little locks on them. Underneath the individual mailboxes are some larger boxes. When you get a package in the mail, and it is too big for your box but small enough for the larger ones, the mailperson (ours is a woman, I think) leaves a key in your box to open the larger box to get your package. This is what happened yesterday. I opened the bigger box and I discovered a box from Tim's parents. I had my suspicions as to the content of the box so I went home and quickly put the box in the refrigerator, assuming it to be something perishable. When Brandon got home from school, he wanted to know why a cardboard box was in our refrigerator. I said it was a package from Grandma and Grandpa Cox whereupon he immediately got a grin on his face and knew there was Oberle Dog sausage in the box! We opened it to confirm and when Cameron got home and discovered the sausage, he said, "Now that's what I'm talking about!!!" as his eyes lit up!
Thank-you for the sausage, Grandma and Grandpa! And I know somewhere in Murray, KY, Chris is enjoying it as well!