Okay, so I've been lazy about updating this blog...you have to admit though, I am doing good at updating Miles' blog. Did anyone notice I changed the name of his blog a bit? "Mormonator" was Miles' nickname in JROTC. It fit- he was the only Mormon and bigger than everyone else. Anyway, I thought this title was better. If you haven't read his blog, (letters to us) then try it. Just click on his picture on the right.
For us, Christmas was great but it was too bad we didn't get to see everyone. Understandably Jason and Royal and families couldn't come out again after being here in August so we missed seeing them.
Jotty helped me decorate for Christmas and did NOT complain. He even set up the tree and put all the ornaments on...and my obsessive self only moved one ornament from where he placed it! I was so grateful to have his help. Of course he helped me take it all down and pack it away as well. When he was taking down the outside stuff it was probably 30 degrees. As it was so cold he would do a bit, come in and warm up and then go out to do more etc. He also helped me wrap the presents which really helped my stress level. In fact, I think this was probably my least stressed Christmas ever. I won't deny that buying gift cards for some didn't help--it did! I like gift cards so I assume everyone else does. It certainly keeps me from obsessing over what to give to whom. We gave all the adult kids a Water Bob. It's for emergency water storage. Go to http://www.waterbob.com to check it out.
Christmas morning was a little nostalgic for me. I had my mom's fruitcake and homemade tamales! Seemed just like home-what we would have every Christmas morning. Rick made fruit cake using my mother's recipe (really, the only fruitcake that tastes good) and since they were giving to us this year I told him he could give us fruitcake. It tasted just like Mom's-I haven't made her fruitcake for several years. ANYWAY... then I traded a jar of Jim's delicious salsa for some homemade tamales from a sister in the ward. They were wonderful!
It was a fairly quiet Christmas holiday until I had Vertigo again and was out of commission for a couple of days.
So, we are back to the 'grindstone' again except now we get JaNae and Jeremy's kids every weekday morning at 6:30. She leaves work at about 6:30 to go to school (til after 2:00 p.m.) and Jeremy has to leave then also so he brings the kids by.
Jotty is about to start the next semester and finally get his driver's license. He's been very patient with me saying things like "we're in a hurry- I'll drive". Really cuts down on driving experience for him. He also had to wait until Miles was off of our policy.
For those that didn't hear, Harvey, the rabbit, died. Let me give you a "prequel":
When Jason and Jacob were young, before I married Jim, they had a parrot. One night Jim was watching a suspenseful movie and the parrot was out of his cage, kind of next to Jim. Well, right in the middle of a rather tense moment the bird let out a very loud squawk. Jim, the Viet Nam vet, reacted out of instinct, went into defense mode and hit the bird. The parrot died. Jim told his young sons that the bird flew away. In another instance, their dog Benji got hit by a motorcycle (Jim swears it wasn't him). Again, Jim used the same story and told the boys the dog ran away. Then later, we had adopted a dog, Falcor, that didn't like to co-operate with anyone and was always running away. Jim didn't like the dog since he cooperated the least with him. At one point, I was in the hospital and the dog got out and ran away. Usually he showed back up eventually but this time he didn't. So when we talk about Falcor running away the family joke pops up about Jim and animals "running away". When Harvey died, I told Jim, "Harvey ran away". He said, "Really? Well that's okay." I replied, "No Jim, really. He ran away...you know, like Benji and the parrot 'ran away'"? Oh yeah, THAT kind of "running away". At least we know he had nothing to do with Harvey's demise...uh...running away.
Okay, that's the end of this post. Until later!
4 comments:
Heck! I'll learn to make tamales in exchange for a jar of Uncle Jim's salsa!!
vertigo ??? oh yay...what else did you sign up for Jan ??? The best thing about living in the San Diego area is the easy access to tamales in parking lots of stores..We usually get them from the same family Sat. morning in front of AmVets thrift store..$1.00 each...sooo good.......they did give us a phone number to just order them from them..but I like this way !!
who did you exchange with? viola?
it was fun being home for christmas and visiting with you.
I came across a picture I had of Marco the parrot. You know the one that "flew away" =]
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