December Wrap up and a Brand New Year!!!

Happy New Year folks!!! It's been awhile since I've blogged but, hey, I've been busy, dang it!

Let's see, let's see.... December was a blur. Semester tests for the kids and basketball homecoming AND dance. Let's just say that 6th-8th graders are funny to watch. Semester tests rolled around and it was crazy trying to figure out who was exempt. It was sorta nice though, not as many students. HOWEVER, I took one of my students to the principal's office for the first time. Anyway, the day after semester tests is basically a free day. The students can show up if they want to, it doesn't count against them. I thought I would be cool and bring some movies to school and let them choose what they wanted to watch. I thought Star Wars would be a number one but nooooooooooo, it was SpongeBob SquarePants that they wanted. WOW!!! In the afternoon some the high school students brought their XBOX 360 and played Call of Duty. That was fun to watch. So when the last bell rang it was like being free of something and I skipped out to my car and drove merrily home. I baked a lot of cookies.The next day started our Christmas activities. We got packed and wrapped last minute presents and headed out to Comanche, OK to Jason's sister's place. We all piled in to their new van and took off for Wichita Falls, TX to do some shopping and it was crazy!!! But I enjoyed it. We ate at Olive Garden and had fun with our waiter. Drove home and fell promptly to sleep. The next day, I'm not sure what we did. We did go to Wal-Mart, twice. Also went to see National Treasure. Very fun! The next day Ruth got the boys and we went to church. The boys are always fun and we have a good time together. We played video games (Star Wars Lego).
We actually had Christmas on Christmas Eve morning and it was a blast. I thought Devon and Bryce were going to pass out. They got a Nintendo DS and they were pretty quiet after that. (Preoccupied, ya know). I made a haul, too. Da ng, I love Bed, Bath and Beyond!!! Our gifts we gave were our engagement pictures. I think that went over well.

TC in a Reindeer outfit eating my chocolate tin!!!

We drove back to our apartment that night and got ready for the next leg of our Christmas vacation on Christmas Day by doing laundry and what not.... The next day we drove to Fayetteville and spent time with Mom and Aunt Becky. Mom was having some outpatient surgery the next day so that's what I did. That night when Mom was all tucked in, Jason and I moved our headquarters to Dad's house and stayed there for the rest of the time. We were anticipating Pat's arrival for R&R on Saturday but had no clue when he would arrive. We actually got an update from him pe rsonally while he was in Ireland so we knew he was at least out of the Middle East on Friday night. In the meantime, Mom and I went to David's Bridal and ordered my shoes and got some swatches of the bridesmaids dresses while Jason went to Best Buy. Patrick arrived about 5:25pm at XNA regional airport and we were all there to greet him. It was awesome. That evening Jason and I went over to Drew and Mandy's to watch UFC on paperview. It was interesting. But it was really fun to be with same age people (even if we were the oldest people there). Pat and Alex stopped by and one of Drew's co-workers was there. However the girls had already gone to bed....dang...I really wanted to play with them. But oh, well. We were going to see them the next day.

Patrick arriving home. YAY!!!

Apparently Drew had a little too much to drink that night (after we were gone). We'll just leave it at that. Sunday was the big Christmas/Birthday shindig at Dad's. It was fun. Lots of wrapping paper. Here are some photos.

Emma, that's for catching butterflies, not Emmas!!! See, Alex is doing it right!!!

Jason and I came back on Monday. Happy New Year!!! Jason was not feeling well at all, lots of congestion AND he had to go back to work on the 2nd. :( While Jason was at work I played my Christmas gift, Age of the Empires III. It's awesome!!! and I just piddled around the apartment not really doing much of anything. I did finally take down all the Christmas stuff...the apartment looks bare now. OOOOhhhhhh!!! I got a really good handmixer for Christmas and I used it to make some terrible chocolate cake, but the process was fun. By the way, as much as I like to watch Iron Chef America....I am NO Iron Chef. Just don't have the knowledge... Oh well, I'll just watch it. It's the weekend now and I must get some lesson plans together for next week!!! and psyched up for the semester. I think it's going to go extremely fast and then extremely slow too. We'll see... The countdown continues to the big wedding day!!!! June 14th if you forgot already.

Hey, how did that get in there!
That is a mistletoe picture, so we just had to, ya know, kiss!!

Peace to you and hope you had a wonderful Christmas.