Christmas Evening

We spent Christmas afternoon/evening with the Wilson and Bugay families. I have no photos to show for the night, however, suffice it to say that there are 13 empty champagne and wine bottles on my counter this morning! We had a full house with our family, my mom and dad, Bill and Paula, Wendy and Tosha, and Jarrett and Shelley. It was a very Merry Christmas! To say we are blessed is an understatement. Love to you all!!!

Season's Greetings from Scout, Ruby and Liberty

Ruby's Christmas Stocking

Christmas Morning

Callie found soccer goals and a skateboard (!*!@) from Santa, and Madden got a dress form and Heelies.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve afternoon, Glenn and Elizabeth stopped by for a nice visit and some snacks. Then, we spent Christmas Eve with Melanie and Jeff. Tamales, boiled shrimp (in the Mama Po tradition) and lots of love. The girls left cookies, milk, and multiple notes/questionaires for Santa, a handmade necklace gift for Mrs. Claus, and carrots for the reindeer! Porter, mom and I went to the candlelight Christmas Eve service - one of my favorite events of the year.

Martin Family Christmas

We had a wonderful dinner and gift exchange with the Martin family!

Dogs!

Last day of school

Business Trip to Portland

I had a fast and furious business trip to Portland, Oregon the first weekend of December. It was great to meet the guys in our Wright Strategies Portland office. We ate, drank, visited and had so much fun at a sledding hill on Mt. Hood! It wa s a great way to kick off winter and the holiday season! Click here to see more of the fun!

Hooked 'em at the Green House!

It was so much fun to watch the UT-A&M game at the Green's house! Amy and I are old friends - cheerleaders together in high school and roommates at UT. I have so many fond memories involving her family and wonderful parents, Sally and Ben-jammin! It was fun to scream alongside her again. Poor Ben's ears may never be the same with the two of us under one roof! Thanks, Green clan! We love you!

Thanksgiving to Remember

What do you do when you have 14 people arriving for Thanksgiving lunch in 2 hours but have no electricity to cook that lunch? Be thankful for your kind neighbors who let you borrow their ovens!

Thanksgiving morning, we noticed something wacky going on with the electricity at Anna and Dell's house. Several lights went out at once, another began flickering, and lights were dimming and surging throughout the house. At first we thought it was isolated, but eventually realized it was a much bigger problem. We soon found out that the neighbors on one side were also affected, but no one else on the block. A call to the city, and (quite quickly, I might add) a service man appeared and diagnosed the problem as a line that had been damaged where it was running through the limbs of a hackberry tree. But he couldn't fix it until the tree trimmers came to cut off the offending limbs, so he cut the power to the houses and drove away, estimating it would take about 3 hours to get the trees trimmed and run a new line.

At this point Anna was more than a bit concerned about the impending lunch crowd when: Enter the kindness of neighbors. The neighbors across the street and on the other side were leaving to go elsewhere to celebrate with family and volunteered to leave their homes and kitchens open for us to use. It was quite an elaborate operation of coordination - squash casserole, Melanie's sweet potatoes, dressing and Glenn Jr's famous potatoes in the oven across the street, ham and rolls in the next-door neighbor's oven, turkey in Ruthie's electric roaster! And the cell phone calls and seemingly endless parade of food, people, and potholders in and out of the three houses was comical!

We ended up eating lunch by candlelight about an hour and a half later than scheduled, but all was delicious, fully cooked and gobbled up! It was a lovely reminder to be thankful for all that we have (so much!!!) rather than what we don't have. And in true Murphy's Law fashion, the lights went on as we served dessert!

Hope everyone's holiday was filled with family, friends, love and laughter. Ours sure was!

Halloween 2009 (Otherwise known as the LONGEST Day of My Life!)

A brief rundown of last Saturday's events:

• 9:00am Madden dance Troupe practice
• 9:30am Callie soccer game (she scored a goal with a monster corner kick!)
• noon - 3:00pm Doss Elementary school H'OWL carnival (including a Callie gymnastics performance that involved standing around for 45 minutes, two half-hour volunteer shifts - one for each class, and Madden entering the costume contest - another 45 minutes of standing around! Worth it, however, as she scored 1st place in the 4th-5th grade Best Girl competition! Yea, Pippi Longstocking!)
• 5:30pm Dinner with great friends, the Kaufmans
• 6:30pm Commence trick-or-treating
• 7:00pm UT game!!! Luckily, we passed multiple houses with TVs in the front yard, one with a projection screen of the game, and even a TV/battery combo being pulled along on a dolly!
• 9:00pm Home with Callie and a friend for a sleepover - Madden spent the night with Danielle
• 11:00pm UT Victory!!!