Ok, it’s official………. we are definitely addicted. I haven’t spent this much time gaming since I got Zelda Ocarina of Time.

The weird part, there is evidently no point at all to this game.

But it has keep us all entertained. <laughing>.

We were going to go to the movies yesterday, but we couldn’t agree on what to see. Hubby and I were up for King Kong, but neither girl particularly wanted to see that, and since Silver_Fangz is really not feeling well…. we decided to go to Walmart, buy some new movies and have movie night here.

We ended up with: Pitch Black (Vin Diesel is exactly one day older than me… how cool is that), Herbie Fully Loaded and 10 Things I Hate About You.

Between us for Christmas we got xXx, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King, Spanglish, Man of the House, Madagascar, and Sky High. I think we have enough new movies for awhile!!! (you think?)

Not sure what the New Year’s plans are, but I’m thinking of going and picking up some fireworks. It won’t be the same as this summer in NM when we had aerials and the works, but it would give the girls something to do!

We had bad tidings yesterday…. the landlord’s mom who owns the house is not well and the children are planning on selling the house…. <heavy sigh of despair>. We have options, and it’s not terrible, but it’s harder to find a place to rent with pets, and we don’t want to move and then move again in a 1 1/2 years.  Verrry depressing. Landlord is a realtor and is going to try to put in a contingency clause that will allow us and him (he lives in the Ohana down below) to stay through our enlistment. Please keep us in your thought and prayers……

Today is another indoor day, like I said SF is sick, I’m getting there (aaarrrghhhhh) and so is Squirt — although her and hubby are out golfing.  I’m going to pound some orange juice, and do some Ziacam and see if I can’t head this cold off. Grrrr….. I hate being sick!

What do you guys do to stay healthy?? We need something around here… I’m SO tired of being sick! Any hints tips or advice!!

Well I hope everyone had a verrryyy Merry Christmas!!!

We had a great Christmas here! We had family close, and everyone was pleased with the Christmas haul.

Midnight Mass was amazing, but we have decided next year we will go to Christmas Day mass as we missed our regular choir. We attend the Teen Life Night mass and we love the contemory choir that we just love! Midnight mass was the adult choir and they were beautiful, but we missed our choir… so next year, we’ll go to the mass they sing at!

The girls got us up at 5:44 am and we didn’t get to bed before 1:45 — so you do the math…. YIKES!

Christmas dinner was fantastic ~ Hubby is such a great cook!

We went to bed early, after talking to all the family and friends via the wonderful invention of the tellyphone….

It was a great day!

Today both girls are feeling poorly, especially Silver_Fangz. Not a good Christmas gift!

Plans for today:

Play games,

watch movies

work out

and just enjoy our family… I’m so glad they are all here today. I love having them around. Some times I just want the house to myself, but mostly, I just love spending time with my family. Hooray for the holidays!

Merry Christmas Eve!!!

We have had a great day. Hubby got up and went surfing. We sat around and watched Christmas movies and munched. We had sausage, cheese, deviled eggs, spinatch dip, ranch dip, and chips along with the tons of fudge, cookies, chocolated dipped pretzels etc.

Hubby and Squirt started working on his remote control BMW that he bought about 2 years ago and hasn’t built yet, until today. We call Squirt Miss Mechanic so she had a blast helping.

Now they are driving the chasis zans body around, scaring the cat and driving the dog to frenzied excitement.

The girls just opened their one gift for Christmas Eve. Both were very happy with their gifts.  Silver_Fangz received Nickelback and Spanglish, and Squirt received a Trail of Painted Ponies — the mosaic one. So far all is good.

We are ready for Mass which we leave for in about 1 1/2 hours. We decided to go to midnight mass. We will leave early as I’m sure the seating will be scarce… all the C& E Catholics will be out. Not that I mind, I’m glad they come even if it’s just twice a year.

I just wanted to tell everyone Merry Christmas!!

Have a great night… and don’t forget to leave out the milk and cookies!

What a great day. We started by hanging out and doing some chores… laundry, picking up etc. The girls baked up another batch of biscochitos… so now we’ll make it through Christmas….. whew!!!

Hubby took apart the computer and cleaned it up and then defrag…. it’s running so smooth and quiet now… thanks honey!

I finished the Christmas cards, including the dreaded holiday letter, made labels, cut out pictures of the girls to include in a few fortunate ones (yes ThisIsBullDookie… you are a fortunate one), and mailed them. I know, I know… it the 23rd only two days till Christmas. But hey, usually I mail out New Year’s cards.. so I’m ahead of the power curve!

Then we took a drive through Paia and went to look at Ho’okipa – they were supposed to have monster waves today 20-30 ft. but, it was all blown out… so we headed to the south side and spent a few leisurely hours at the beach. Noooo not Keawakapu…And we still have all of our digits! We figured that the shark had probably had it’s fill of human by then, but we decided not to press our luck. Funnily enough, we realized thanks to an astute Xanga friend that the day we were supposed to go to the beach and the tourist got munched was a Wednesday…. see???? Wednesdays = bad things.

Now we are about to watch a movie. We are all relaxed, and happy. It’s good to be alive, and it’s good to be surrounded by people we love.

All is good with my world tonight.

What to hear about divine intervention?

Yesterday we were planning to go to the beach when oldest dd got home from school. We go to a beach on the south side called Keawakapu. The girls decided they weren’t interested in going .. they wanted to go today. 

So last night we’re watching the news and whoa… what’s this?? A tiger shark sighting and attack. Some poor tourist lost 3 fingers…. where at?? Keawakapu! They sighted that one and another and chased them out to deeper waters. The one that attacked…. 12 ft long!!

So needless to say.. we aren’t going to the beach today either!

Hubby says “it’s their ocean”

I replied — “no doubt, and they are welcome to have it. I will stay home for a few days and give them all the space and time they want!”

I have to admit though… the tourist was swimming 400 yds from shore in murky water….. not the brightest crayon in the box.  Can’t really blame the shark… can you?

Anyways.. I’m land locked for a few days for sure. The thought of sharing the ocean with a few sharks doesn’t bother me, but swimming in water that I KNOW to have sharks… ummmm no thanks. He’ll move on soon, probably already has gone.

Maybe we’ll hit the beach on Christmas Eve. That would be kinda cool!

Gotta go, Silver_Fangz has her interview with people to people in about 45 minutes…. Wish us luck!

Aaarrrrgh………We ordered one of the girls gifts online. We ordered it back at the beginning of the month. There have been nothing but problems!!!

The place has been sooo nice every time I talk to them, but still…I am so frustrated. They just shipped it yesterday!! They were supposed to ship it last week…. yikes!! I had them ship it 2nd day air, which cost an extra 30.00 dollars.

Then today hubby checks the bank balance to see if they have charged it (i.e. finally shipped it) and they have charged us about 100.00 more than we had expected. So hubby calls again…. and they had already realized the mistake and corrected it.

So, already this week I have called them 3 times, and hubby twice. Last week 2x for me, 3x for hubby.

It’d better be here for Christmas, I don’t think I could stand Squirts disappointment if it isn’t. Especially after everything we’ve been through to keep this order on track!!!

Keep your fingers crossed!

I have all my appendages crossed.

And my eyes… which made writing this difficult!!!

Well yesterday was trying and disappointing… I try not to let it get me down, but it’s hard. Not working is ……………… not working! After the new year I will remedy that. It will be tough, home schooling, taking classes and working, but I’m tough… I can do it.

The Christmas party was actually very fun. The ‘white elephant’ gift exchange was hilarious. Gifts ranged from radios and wind chimes, to rubber chickens and a bottle of crunk juice. ~ I got the rubber chicken!!! This thing has been coming to parties since 2000. Each year the person who gets it, writes his name on it and brings it back the following year.  Several things got stolen a bunch like a M & M motorcycle candy dispenser, a radio and a bottle of Maui wine, and a box of golf balls. Fun was had by all.

The best part….. I got to see the baby!!! She is so precious!! She slept the whole time, so I have to go over this week to visit her. I can’t wait.

Still getting the last minute stuff together for Christmas. but pretty much everything is done.

I wish I could be with my parents and family, but am looking forward to seeing them in February.

This morning Silver_Fangz took her Christmas gifts to her friends… what did she take??? 10 baggies with biscochitos. Looks like that double batch we made won’t be enough. We took some to the Christmas party, then she took some to school. On top of that the kids and hubby have been devouring them steadily.

Here’s a little Christmas memory:

The first Christmas we were married we were living in Bremerhaven Germany. We lived in the attic of an apartment building which was temporary housing. We were so broke, our budget gave us each 7.50 every two weeks for spending money. We didn’t have money for ornaments, so I made them — salt dough ornaments that I painted and varnished, popcorn I strung, 2 strands of white lights that I bought on sale for 1.00 each, and the angel my mom sent us that year.

That year I made a double batch of biscochitos, the start of a Christmas tradition. Hubby loved them so much he took them with him to work for lunch every day.  A dozen at a time!!!! By Christmas there were no biscochitos (which I don’t do Christmas day without biscochitos) and he had gained like 8lbs!! I ended up making another double batch, but we stopped him from eating them a dozen at a time!

We invited all the single airmen over for Christmas dinner. Actually, they brought over their gifts, crashed in our apartment and we played games, ate and had Christmas from Christmas Eve to the day after. They had a marathon game of Risk going that lasted almost the whole time, with people coming and going.

It was one of our best Christmas’s ever.

So what makes a Christmas truly special?? That year it wasn’t presents, or family, it was enjoying the holiday in the spirit of Christmas. What are your favorite holiday memories? I know that will always be one of mine.

Alright! Biscochitos are here!! And fudge, and other yummy cookies. Today we did baking, and cleaning and this evening we all went to see the Chronicles of Narnia.

The girls were told last night by their dad that we (meaning him and I) were going to the movies, and that if they wanted to come they had to get their rooms cleaned and their laundry done.

They were very busy all day! And their rooms look great and almost all their laundry is done.

Tomorrow is the shop Christmas party. I’m not really looking forward to it. Most of my friends aren’t planning on attending… which means it will mostly be young Lt. types etc…. drinking…. sigh………..

I want to go to evening mass because I really enjoy the choir. Hubby doesn’t know if we’ll be done in time. YIKES ~ it starts at 2:00 and mass is just down the street at 5:30. How long does he expect us to stay?? Man, I hope we don’t have to stay all day.

Chronicles of Narnia was excellent by the way. The graphics were great, along with the soundtrack and videography, not to mention the scenery and the script. It was very well done indeed! A lot of people missed the very end cause they left when the credits rolled but ha ha~ their was more to come! So if your going, stay in your seats until the credits are over!

Well it’s late, and it’s been a busy day so I’m off for now. Still have more baking to do tomorrow; turtles, banana nut bread, and chocolate covered pretzels.

What are your favorite holiday treats?

oh BTW: ThisIsBullDookie… I’ll take that trade!

EW.

I spent a large portion of time today composing one of those dreaded holiday newsletters……. I know, I know, but we have a lot of family and friends who live far away, and we don’t talk to them on a regular basis. So I try every 3 or 4 years (or more) to write a letter updating everyone on our lives. I try to make it interesting and somewhat funny (that’s really hard when your writing to a large diverse group). I also try to include some pictures of the family, especially the girls, just to let them know what we look like these days.

I try to keep it short, but boy, I had a lot to tell this year — had to do some serious editing! SO much is going on these days! Wow – I feel like I don’t do anything, till I start trying to write about it all……

Man I hate that song.

Tomorrow we go to see Chronicles of Narnia. Hooray!

Well……… maybe you would.

I can’t speak for everyone. I personally don’t care for it……. but that’s just me!

Ok off to rest… Holiday baking begins tomorrow which means tomorrow I’ll have biscochitos and fudge! Hooray!!!

Here’s pictures of my cat (who can beat up your dog) and my foot licking dog………

What about you? Do you send out holiday letters? Photo cards? What?

Ok, so with 9 days left until Christmas, I am finally getting into the Christmas spirit.

I don’t know what’s been keeping me back. Maybe cause I was busy, or because of my hectic final schedule, but I didn’t feel it like I usually do. Yesterday, I finally felt connected to the “reason for the season”.

For me Christmas is about God, the birth of our savior Jesus Christ and the celebration of our love for him, and his love for us. Growing up, the Advent season meant lots of time with the church, special traditions that symbolize the coming of Christ’s birth, music that told of our joy at his coming and the awe of the miracle of his birth.

I just wasn’t getting that this year. Until yesterday. I have been listening to Christmas music, but yesterday I started listening to old traditional carols, the one’s that truly talk about the miracle of Christmas, and my heart swelled with love and gratitude. Now — I am ready for Christmas! Even if I don’t get any more decorating done, or baking, or wrapping… Now Christmas is here.

A very cool thing I learned the other day.. do you know that Xmas is not a secularization of the word Christmas? It actually comes from Greek –

Xmas (or X-mas) is an abbreviation for Christmas. It is derived from the word ×ÑÉÓÔÏÓ, transliterated as Christos, which Greek for Christ. Greek is the language in which the whole New Testament was written.

Originally, in “Xmas”, X represented the Greek letter ÷ . It was pronounced with an aspirated [kh], which is the first letter of Christ’s name in Greek. An upper-case ÷ has the same shape as a Latin alphabet letter X, hence the abbreviation “Xmas”.

Found this explanation at wikipedia.

I was very happy to hear that, even though people are trying to take Christ out of Christmas…. all things lead back to him!

Sooooo……………

Merry Xmas!