Happy Thanksgiving!!

Well...it's all over with. The table is clear, dishes all done (well....all but the ones in the dishwasher...) and leftovers in the fridge. We had a great meal and great company. Most of you can see the pics on my Facebook page, but if not, here is the link to the album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001038&l=00dee&id=1304340063

I am physically tired, but totally blessed from the day. I missed having our daughter and family with us. I am glad that my mom joined us and brought green bean casserole, ramen noodle salad, and pumpkin pie. I am glad the turkey turned out okay, but almost forgot to put out the pistachio salad. I am thankful for the 8 international students that accepted our invitation and joined us. Did I mention that I've been blessed today??

Tomorrow is 'black Friday'. It's not part of the Thanksgiving Holiday, but our Governor gives all the State employees an extra day off. So I'm definitely thankful for that. I don't plan on being at the stores when they open at 4AM, but would like to find a Christmas tree sometime tomorrow. (we have 'donated' our big 7' tree to the BSU this year, and instead we will put up a smaller tree in the house)

We took a video of us eating today, and Billy is trying to edit it down to 30-seconds. If it works, I'll post it later.

Wow. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Christmas is peeking around the corner. The New Year is just down the street. Wasn't it just yesterday I was watching the fireworks on the 4th of July??

This is also the first year since Sydney & Annabella have been born that they will not be with us on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Ashley & Danny both have retail jobs that prevent them from taking any time off for the Holidays. Even Danny has to work at Starbucks ON Thanksgiving Day. Geesh.

Billy & I are hoping to get to go visit them right after Christmas, but we will only get to spend a couple of days there since we are leaving on a trip to Turkey on the 29th.

We are having a Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow at our place and so far we have several international students that will be joining us along with my mom and Christopher's girlfriend Crystal. They will be from China, India, Jamaica, and Africa. We always have a good time and they always seem to enjoy having an 'authentic' Thanksgiving dinner. And my mom always enjoys kidding around with them and learning new things about their lives back home.

Of course there will be pictures of food to follow. Until then....everybody have a wonderful Thanksgiving and try not to stuff yourselves too much!!

Here are some pics from Annabella's birthday party:

This is Ivan; last post I said he would be a year old in January, but it's actually February. The other little girl is a daughter of a couple that we go to church with.



Great-Grandpa Meadows holding the birthday girl.



Opening presents:



The cake:



Eating her very own baby cake:


After eating the cake:

Here is a video of us singing Happy Birthday:




And here she is eating her baby cake; she would only eat the icing on the top at first; and at one point she must have made a really funny face to everybody, but I didn't catch it on camera:




They stayed through Monday and on Monday while Danny & Ashley went to run some errands, I watched the girls:


We had a great time with them, and looking forward to seeing them again at Christmas!!!

Well, I am getting geared up for a fun-filled weekend including celebrating our granddaughter Annabella's first birthday!! The cake is ordered, the house is pretty much in order, other than the extra bedroom where the girls will probably sleep. Okay...so that room is NOT in order. Nope. Not one bit. So looks like I know where I will be on Saturday. Yep. (pictures of the big party to follow!!) OH...actually her birthday is officially today....so.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNABELLA!!

Santa Claus is coming to.....a mall near you!

Santa Claus came to our local mall last Saturday, and although the picture is kind of blurry, you can tell it's a Santa!! And I did not realize we had 'palm-like' trees in our mall. Maybe that's part of the scenery for Santa??


Today was my mother-in-law's birthday, so we went over to her house for a little birthday bash. This picture is the son of one of our nieces; his name is Ivan. He has such tiny feet! He will be a year old in January.

I have noticed more and more 'bully' shoppers at the mall lately. What are 'bully' shoppers? They are the ladies that just HAVE to be at the SAME rack looking at the SAME group of clothes you are looking at although you were there FIRST!! I resist to fight them though, and just slip away to another rack hoping they won't follow me. Darn bullies!! (I was always kind of a weenie when it came to bullies....just ask my sister!!)

Cold and blustery day....

It's 37 degrees here at 3:00, and very cloudy and blustery outside. I've been inside all day, just doing odds and ends around the house. I even made some pumpkin bread.




I will be getting out later this afternoon to take one of our international students from Jamaica to the mall, so I'll have to be sure and dress warmly. (I know she's not used to this weather!!)



The leaves are starting to fall from the trees, as you can see in the pictures below. Of course, it doesn't help if your tree is already DEAD to begin with, so it didn't take much for those leaves to fall off.

I am embarking on an adventure this Christmas season; I have joined a choir of 'shepherds and shepherdesses' to perform in the opera "Amahl and the Night Visitors".



A local organization is doing the program in December, and I thought it would be 'fun' to do something different this year. And boy is this different!! I really didn't know this was an opera until I read up on it, and it will be a challenge to learn and sing, but I think it will be worth it. (yes, it's in English!) I have done things before with this same organization, including a trip to Poland & Austria in 2001.

The rehearsals will keep me pretty busy but I'm ready for it. The choir only participates and sings in a small part of the opera so I won't have a lot to memorize, but one song in particular talks about the different kinds of food the shepherds/shepherdesses are bringing to Amahl and his family. (you can Google the opera and read the storyline if you'd like) In this song, we sing about "olives and quinces, apples and raisins; nutmeg and myrtle, medlars and chestnuts." But that's not all! We also bring "citrons and lemons, musk and pomegranates; goat-cheese and walnuts, figs and cucumbers."

They bring even more, but I won't go any further. Guess I'll have to do a search for "quinces, myrtle, medlars, and musk" to see just what those are!!

Our son Christopher is getting in quite a few hours at his new job at Best Buy, but it will be another week or so before he gets his first paycheck. It's always hard to have to work for a couple of weeks before you see your 'reward'. And he is still plugging along with his classes, so he's a busy boy!!

Santa arrives today at the mall, and tomorrow at our local Bass Pro Shops. It's amazing how he can be at so many places at one time!! =)

(I will try and snap a picture of the one at the mall when I am there today.)

Have a great weekend everybody! Hopefully the sun will shine tomorrow!!

Scenes From The Sunroof

These are scenes from the sunroof of our car (well...the FIRST one is from the passenger window....) and the last is a video looking up through the sunroof as we drove through a cemetery close to our house. Aren't the trees beautiful this year?? Enjoy!!

Partly Cloudy with a chance of Rain...

Yesterday was Halloween. And although I don't personally participate in what you would call "Halloween" activities, our office did have a 'dress-up' day. What did I do??? Well, thanks to an idea Ashley had a couple of years ago for herself, I took a blue scrub top, taped cut-out clouds on it, then taped cotton balls on those. I had a spray bottle with water in it, and the word "rain" wrote on it. SO.....I was "Partly cloudy with a chance of Rain"....and would spray the water bottle in the air. However, my clouds kept falling off throughout the day, so I bet the cleaning guy wondered why there were all these cotton balls in the trash cans around the office with tape on them!



I also took pictures of some of my employees who did dress up:



Here is the view from my desk; as you can see, 2 employees dressed up in the same outfit! One of the supervisors in my group is standing in the middle.


Here is what is says on the back of their costumes.....hilarious!!!


Here is my 'boss'. She actually does dress up like this for western shows, festivals, etc.

These are the 2 supervisors in my unit; the one at the desk has really blonde hair when she's not wearing a wig, but I told her not to ever dye her hair black!!


Well my 'outfit' did actually predict the weather, for around 11:00 we got a pretty good rainstorm. Here is video from my office window. We got a pretty good downpour for about 15 minutes and some hail with it. (I offered to walk around throwing ice cubes to simulate hail, but decided not too...)






By the end of the workday, all my clouds had fallen off, and my 'rain' was gone. So I then became, "I Can See Clearly Now, the Rain Is Gone". HA!!!