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December 26, 2006
Xmas 2006
Christmas this year was as fun as ever. Once again, Don and I spent Christmas Eve with the Bucks. We did our usual white elephant gift exchange and the dart board I picked out was a huge hit! It was the most stolen gift of the night! The weirdest gift was a lobster trap that Uncle Vern got...obviously came from Uncle John and Aunt Nancy's garage. HA! Uncle John was looking very well as was everyone else. Derek is getting so big and is talking really well for a 2 1/2-year-old! Everything is "NO!" with him, however I know that phase will pass. And Karen threw a wonderful party as always. She's always so organized and it turned out great! Just too bad Andrew couldn't make it this time. But we all signed a lovely card to send him along with our group photo. Merry Christmas Andrew!
Then Christmas morning Don and I spent at our house with Nancy, Brian, Jessica and Derek. I cooked breakfast for them, as I usually do, however, I didn't have the hash browns--I saw the Ore Ida bags in the freezer, but one only had a little bit left and the other bag turned out to be french fries! Bummer. But at least I was able to serve coffee, though Nancy had to make it in the french press since we don't have a coffee maker. But it was good enough, I'm sure. There were many presents exchanged and everyone got a lot of good loot. Unfortunately, the fire truck I bought for Derek petered out just as soon as Brian pressed the buttons. I SWEAR it was working when I got it home! *sigh* Hopefully, all it'll need is a couple new batteries. Don made out with a bungload o' books (since that's all he put on his Amazon wish list) and I made out with a beautiful set of diamond earrings (thank you honey!) and a cool new deep fryer. Hot wings and fried chicken GALORE!! Too bad that we always have to split so soon since Brian and Jessica have to go to Flint to see Brian's parents and we have to go see my family. If Christmas was three days long, it'd be perfect!
Anyway, we got to my sister's house in Kalamazoo and I didn't get tackled by the 6-year-old this time, even though I was prepared for her! I did get a 3-child hug, though! The kids are getting so big and they're looking more wonderful each time. Sara looks more and more like a clone of her mom when she was that young. Tessie is as cute as ever and PJ (we call him pBay...like eBay) is getting so very handsome! And he's such a friendly, sweet and loving boy these days. (Before I left, I was playing with them in the hall and pBay put his head on my lap and said, "I want you to stay here!" Awww!!) Anyway, once again, lots of loot to be unwrapped. I think Oupie made out like a bandit since we gave him an iPod shuffle (finally, a gift that gives him the same excited expression I get when he gives ME gifts!) and he got 2 Star Wars Lego sets. The kids got tons of toys, but Oupie's such a great uncle...he set the rule that they could only play with one toy per day. Unfortunately, they successfully broke that rule, though the girls did a little better than pBay, who just couldn't resist playing with everything. I had to help them open up these robo-dogs which were SUCH a pain to get out of the packaging. And each one of them got one! UGH! Not only are they screwed onto a plastic platform in the box, they're twist-tied in and you have to pull out this tab to separate the platform from the base. And you can't do it with your bare hands. So there I was with a set of pliers to get the tab out, scissors to cut the rubber bands that were on the cords and a mini phillips-head screwdriver. ARGH! But they had a ball with them.
Ippie served a delicious turkey for dinner with all the trimmings...guess I didn't get enough for Thanksgiving. Love that turkey! And we decided that Thanksgiving next year would be at my house and Christmas would be at Mom's house...that'll mean much less driving for us. Yay! How was YOUR Christmas?
Posted by Amy at 10:38 AM | Comments (2)
December 17, 2006
Friends and More Friends!
I apologize for not updating my blog in a while... it's been a busy week. I've been updating my writing portfolio (it needed a serious re-vamp!). Plus, my friend Olwyn came to visit me. Yay!! Remember, she's the Irish gal I met in New York who hung out with me at the Statue of Liberty and in Times Square. Her train got in late (what's new?), but as soon as she arrived, I took her straight to the pub...Connor O'Neil's, in downtown Ann Arbor. (They gave us maps of Ireland as our placemats--here she is pointing to her town.) She was glad to get a nice little pint of Carlsberg and some homestyle food (the owner of the pub happens to be from Sligo, where she's from). After that, she and I went to the dojo to meet up with the gang. Unfortunately, Nick was pretty beat, so he and Pam headed home while Don joined me and Olwyn for drinks at Creekside Grill. We sat and talked, she showed me pictures and did some catching up since it'd been a couple months since we saw each other in NY. Some goofy guy tried to hit on us and she shot him down right proper! haha! He came over after hearing her accent and said, "Hey! You're from Australia! I've been to Australia!" Then he proceeded to try to talk in a REALLY bad Aussie accent (sorry Louise!) JEEZ, what a moron!! I just slapped my forehead and rolled my eyes. The guy had NO clue. Then when he found out Olwyn was actually from Ireland, he said, "Oh, I've been to Dublin. Nice place!" And she was like, "Come ON! You can't see Ireland properly by going to Dublin!" Class, Ol!
Unfortunately, she had to leave the next day. I let her sleep in while I went to work, then came back to take her to lunch and then to the train station. I hated to see her go, but by now, she's back in Sligo after her 9-10 week tour of America. Hope you're doing well, Ol!! Miss ya!!
Then last night, we had nearly 30 of our friends over to the house for the NSG Christmas party. It was a blast! We had Ryan, Jessica, Bill and John from NSG, their spouses, people from the dojo, and other friends. We had it catered by La Shish and the food was very popular. We still had quite a bit of leftovers, but it wasn't out of hand. Of course, we did our annual White Elephant gift exchange and four lucky people got gift certificates to Oasis hot tub gardens. And oddly, the things I thought wouldn't be stolen were the things that were stolen the most...like the atomic clock. Who would've thought?
Unfortunately, Nick and Pam couldn't be there to celebrate with us as they were in Canada, but we still have lots of festivities to go this season. Happy Holidays!!
Posted by Amy at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)