Black Ops

Wednesday afternoon we had mist that froze all over everything.  Road conditions in town weren't too bad, but on the lesser traveled roads it was really slick.  Really slick, so slick in fact that I managed to total my mothers little Camry by taking out 6 mailboxes when the car did a 180 rather than slow down so I could make the 90 degree turn necessary to turn onto our street ...  

I hit the mail boxes perfectly ...

• perfectly to shatter the driver side window, when the far right mail box (in the above picture it's in front of the others sitting on the ground on the right) hit the top rim of the window, rather than have the mailbox come through the window and into the car/my face ... 
• perfectly enough to allow me to drive the car home with no problems ... 
• perfectly to take out the posts swiftly and completely -- had they not been there, the car would have likely gone on it's side or upside down given the grade of the ditch ... 
• perfectly enough that (as far as I know) only my mail got laid out for the night ...
• perfectly make the car a total loss because of how perfectly I hit the posts, rough estimates for repair are $3-4,000 ...  it's a 92.  
• so perfectly that I am not scratched, bruised or sore.  

 

Thursday morning GR purchased supplies to fix the mailbox posts and Bob and a neighbor had them up right again before lunch and mail delivery.  Amazingly, none of the mailboxes were damaged, not even a dent.  They hadn't been so lucky 2 years ago when a DUI took out all the boxes and ended up all the way in the ditch.  

Unfortunately, Mom and Dad value this car more than their insurance company does.  It's a sound little car whose transmission is doing great and isn't showing any signs of dying soon.  So rather than ditch it for something else, they will likely replace the door with something from a salvage yard and continue to drive it until the transmission has issues.  In the meantime we're investing in gloves, plastic and duck tape for the drive home.

Visit to Santa

Anna respectfully and determinedly declined every invitation to even stand next to Santa.  And that was with both Grandma's encouraging, suggesting and I'm going to assume bribing as well.  But Anna does an awesome "Santa, Ho, Ho, Ho!", you should ask her about it. 

Preschool Music Program

This continues to be my favorite event of the season, and we have missed it so for the last two years.

Alex choose to wear his suit and his gray sweater vest, he has a thing for sweater vests, loves them!  We laid out a couple of shirt/tie options and this is what he choose.  Once we got everything on, he looked at me and earnestly asked, "Do I look sharp, mom?"   Absolutely!  By the time he went through three hours of church, lunch in the car, and walking in to the preschool, he was done with the jacket, which made him look a little more like all the other kids up on the stage.  


He did a fantastic job.  This little kids LOVES to sing.  He and Anna both love music.  Alex learns lyrics really quickly.  Anna's been going to a music class once a week with Grandma.  I took both kids when she was out of town back in October and he's still singing some of the songs he learned in that one class.  

I had hoped to get video, but discovered minutes before the program that my video camera "magically" went from full battery to no battery overnight.  And I couldn't remember how to get my new camera to take video, so I have a couple of cute pictures of the program and that's it.

I did manage to get a couple of pictures of all five kids ... I was hoping for a Christmas card photo, but I'm going to try again when the lighting is better and when there aren't rows and rows of people behind me making for a very captive audience to perform for.  Although this picture does capture each of them, perfectly giving the viewer a hint of their personalities. 

Poor GR missed the entire program because of tithing settlement. I didn't consult all of my calendars when he ran tithing settlement dates passed me and once I realized the conflict, it was too late.  He's trying a new option this year to be more efficient with his time. He's only offering tithing settlement on a couple of days during the month; two Saturdays and a Sunday with huge blocks of time on each day.  If that doesn't work into peoples schedules they can schedule something independently. We're hoping this will allow him to help me pull of Christmas and celebrate the holiday with us rather than spending hours and hours and hours spread over four weeks at the church.  

Thankfully none of his appointments canceled or didn't show during Alex's performance.  Though if they had, I don't think he would have told me.  He teases that the only time you can really see his wife get frustrated is during tithing settlement.  I am amazed that people aren't more considerate of his time ... no shows/last minute reschedules, not signing up at all, or choosing a time that is convenient for them but leaves large gaps in his schedule.  It isn't intentional, they just don't think or realize what it means for the bishop and his family.  

I'm working this week at the campus bookstore buying text books back.  It's my second buy back and I'm excited.  The money is decent (as long as I don't compare it to what GR makes) and I get to work with fun people.  Mom's here to help with the kids.  We've got major home work projects due this week, holiday parties on Friday and holiday gifts for the teachers.  Busy week!

The Brunch

The brunch this year was a huge success, one of our best yet, and I'm so grateful.  I was really nervous. I was hosting in the house everyone has seen so beautifully decorated and prestinly kept by Diane.  Hosting Thanksgiving helped me start to get things organized, rearranged and cleaned up. I got the carpets cleaned on Monday, a little too close to Saturday for comfort, but they look amazing! Once they were dry Tuesday, we I started decorating and I'm really pleased with how it all turned out.   

Diane and I continue to work on finding the right balance of sweets and savories with the menu.  For the 20+ years she did this in GR's hometown, the ladies only wanted sweets.  Here there is a totally different mentality ... they want savories and only suppliment with sweets.  So I'm now only making one or two sweets, and leaving the rest to her, since that is still where her passion is.  This year we both cut back on the sweets (this is all I put out - huge success by the way - the rest in in the freezer waiting for another occassion) and pumped up the savories.  I fell a bit short on the savory end, so notes for next year::  make two spinach artichoke dips, 3 dozen turkey florentines is not enough - shoot for 6, we should probably have 3lbs of shrimp.  Two wild rice cassroles and three egg casseroles was perfect.  

We had beautiful weather this year, allowing many of our friends to attend. I think we estimated over 50 women came, and they came steddily throughout the morning and lingering well past 11 - love that! The last couple of years preparing for the brunch as been more stress than fun and excitement. I always enjoy it in the end, but after last year I was seriously questioning if it was worth the stress and output. Thankfully, this year was easier ... still a lot of work, but easier on both me and Diane. We made the event more manageable and asked for more stretegic help and I think it really helped reduce my stress level. So thankfully I think we're both really looking forward to next year!