Almost Forgot

I almost forgot to post! I was busy playing Guitar Hero World Tour and then realized it's 10:30pm and no post.

The most exciting news is we finally purchased out Christmas tickets to Texas. I'm VERY excited about going down for the holidays this year.

I'm also getting pretty excited to see my family for a little bit while they're in town for a wedding. Can't believe it's only a little over a week away. I have to find shoes! My goal is to go to DSW & Ross tomorrow on my way home, they're both in the same shopping center so that'll be convenient.

Realized that i have to go shopping this weekend for Thanksgiving preparations if i expect anything to be available - let alone a Turkey. Gees, this weekend is going to be crazy busy. I know this week is going to fly by and then a bit of panic will set in. Maybe i can go shopping during the week, what an idea. I can plan the menu tomorrow after shoe shopping and then on wednesday go shopping or Thursday after my dress fitting. Yeah... ok, this could work, knock something of the list before the weekend.

Hope everyone's Monday had some good news.

White Christmases SUCK

If I ever see snow again it'll be too soon! 2 weeks of the stuff and i'm done FOREVER. Things barely melt but just enough to cause slush in the parking lot, preventing our car from going anywhere! The chains on the car are not staying on and now both sides have flown off on separate occasions. The burning rubber smell when M tried to drive off wasn't a hint that something was wrong?! Or the flying slosh out the front left tire? I'll be shocked if i have tires left after today.

Bah-humbug!

Have i mentioned i have not been out of the house since Saturday? And Saturday was only to walk 30 min both ways to the grocery store. I'm so very very disenchanted with snow.

update: my m.i.l. is a smart woman and i like her very much. I called to say we wouldn't be making it over Christmas dinner. She volunteered her husband to go pick us up at the end of our street since their car has studded tires. I was overjoyed!! We had a wonderful dinner, gift opening and played the board game Imagine If. Good times! We're still stuck in the parking lot though and the sidewalks are un-walkable since they plowed a few days ago making the sidewalk buried under 4 feet of snow. I'm buying snow boots as soon as i can get out.

Rumor

We're supposed to have a snowstorm this weekend. To the grocery store we go tonight! I'm hoping it happens. Being snowed in this weekend doing Christmas decorating and crafts sounds perfect.

We got our tree Saturday but then promptly got into a little tiff about how to rearrange the living room furniture. By the time everything was in a new place we were tired and left the tree bare. It's been smelling awesome and looking big in our living room all week. It's going to look great with lights.

Holiday Stamps 1964

A little inspiration for my Christmas cards. When we were at the coast this weekend we did a little antique shopping. Found a stash of old letters with these great holiday themed stamps. I have the wood type letters of JOY that i'm going to combine with a block print based on one of the stamps. I'm thinking of doing the holly. I've never done a two color print so i'm thinking i'll do two carvings, one for the leaves and another for the berries.

Going to the art store friday to pick up blocks and paper. There is also this gel that can be mixed with the ink to make it transparent, the more added the more transparent. I'm wanting to pick up a little to experiment with.

Months ago i picked up some velvet felt powder that i thought about using on my cards... maybe the holly will be dusted with snow... i'll have to try it.

Photo Update For The Post Before This One

My Last Christmas Update:

We finally got our tree 4 days before leaving town. Each year we go to a U-cut farm and wonder around. This year we basically got out of the car in the Douglas Fur area and said "that one". Once home we put in Rudolf The Red Nose Raindeer (claymation classic version) and proceeded to only get the lights on the tree and a few ornaments out of the boxes before we got tired, lol. This year we'll be home and I play on decking out the house.

When I got married there were holiday traditions to be incorporated into what i understood the routine of them to be. Christmas my husband's family has the tradition of everyone picking out a new ornament - in a family of 7 that's a lot of ornaments - we continued the tradition. The skiing pine cone man is his and mine is the snowflake (i have a thing for them). This year we did add a new twist of purchased a joint ornament at the Dallas World Aquarium, the little turtle, which i'm happy about becuase i really like turtles and wouldn't mind owning one someday.

Photos From The Dallas World Aquarium:

The penguins are cute but wow that area smells horrible! It is even outdoors and they do have heated water for the cooler temps.

My flamingo shots were at the beginning of the trip and i was having issues with low light and blurred photos. There was this tree that had the hot pink spiky flowers, i had to wait my turn to get close enough to shoot a few blooms. I'm proud of the bird shot because I was using the manual photos(new to me) and got the camera to focus on the birds and not the fence like it wanted.

It was exciting to see the river otters because they haven't been on display in about a year, not sure why. The turtles featured here live in the huge pond in the aquarium. The way its built there is a glass window a few feet from the surface on a lower level of the building. There are also two manatee in the pond but they were not at our end and we wanted to move on. I did notice on this trip (it being my 4th) that I payed attention to the smaller stuff.


The first two pictures (L to R) are baby crocodiles that will grow into the size of the croc featured in the last photo. That is actually their mom and I was able to get her picture from the walk way above her area. There is a male but he was hiding in a cave that is underneath this island thing in the middle of their pool.

If you're ever in Dallas I highly recommend going!

Howdy

How I have missed my little blog! There are many things to write about and images to share. The downside is i caught a head cold and can't seem to focus long enough to get the writing cohesive and the images uploaded from the camera. Hopefully by Saturday everything will be clearer and I can write a post about all the grand things i have imagined to happen in 2008.

The ending of December and 2007 was great! Texas was wonderful. I miss my family so much even though I love Oregon. There is never enough time when I go and visit. Having to cram six-eight months worth of visiting time into about a day is not enough.

Highlight of the trip was going with my sister and her husband to their sonigram. I felt very honored to be part of a special moment in their first pregnancy. Never being present at one before I found it amazing to see the little baby on the screen with its tiny bones and little beating heart with four chambers! The biggest surprise was finding out they were having a little girl! They were convinced they were having a boy. My sister asked the nurse several times if she was sure it was a girl. The nurse said "I've been doing this a long time, this is a very clear picture of the baby, I'm 90% sure that it's a girl". My sister has some fears of being a mother of a girl but I believe she will do wonderful.

After the sonigram my sister had an appointment with her midwife and she was able to give me a tourer of the birthing center. It's so nice! Downtown Dallas has several old houses and this happens to be where the birthing center is, inside an old Victorian house! She showed me the birthing room that looked like they converted the dinning area into a bedroom with a lounge area and an adjoining bathroom. The kitchen of the house is around the corner from the room. Inside this huge Armour is all the technical equipment needed for the baby right after birth. I wish I had taken pictures but at the time it just didn't occur to me to do so. I'm very excited for them and I believe they will have a healthy baby and a smooth easy delivery.

The majority of the trip was consumed by spending time with other family members. Lots of visiting and eating and playing of games with more eating. I love love love my grandmother's cooking on both sides. We also went to The Dallas World Aquarium like we usually do on every trip. Normally my husband and I go alone to have a few hours to our selves to relax. On the last night we were there we went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra which was great. My husband wants to do it again the next Christmas we're in town. I enjoyed it and all but i'm not sure I want to do it all the time. From what I've heard their performance is basically the same every time.

New Years was low key. We visited my husband's aunt and played games the whole evening. It was really nice. I'm not one for a huge New Years Eve party. This is probably my least liked holiday ever since I got too old for staying up till midnight to be a novelty.

There was a downer in the whole ending of 2007. My husband's paternal grandfather passed away at 84. The man had been in poor health since a massive stroke in 2000. He had another stroke on I believe on the 23rd but did not pass until the 27th. Today was the funeral for him. It was a very nice service and at the cemetery he received a veterans burial with a gun solute and taps and the widow received the folded flag. I'm glad I could be there to support my husband through the service. He's not very close to his dad's side of the family and that was the first time for me to meet many of the members.

Tonight we're off to go see National Treasure: Book of Secrets with my husbands parents and siblings. It should be fun even if some say it's not as good as the first. Rarely sequels are better or equal. The same goes for books translated to movies.

Promise to be back soon with goals for '08 and some pictures.

Christmas Update

Let the panic set in!


Video clip from Flushed Away, funny movie.

I still have several projects to finish before Friday! I should have taken the whole week off from work too, LOL. No but really, I'll just be a busy bee every night leading up to the departure.

I did get some shopping done thanks to a few great shops up at Etsy:
Photo Glassworks
ilee papergoods
SunlitLetterpress - picked up a card for my sister here but it seems they're out of stock but it says "A Bun in the Oven", cute.


Christmas Exit - five days and counting!

12 Days

Only 12 days left till we lift off and are in Texas. I'm excited but mostly feel behind in all my shopping and preparation for Christmas. Whats worse is that I'm sick today and I don't think I can get up off this couch.

We don't have a tree yet either. We were suppose to go get one yesterday but we were at hubs parents visiting with his brother that just got back into town from 3 months in Italy. It was a nice visit and I was starting to get sick that afternoon, all the body aches and stuff. Anyway, between work and it getting dark at 4p we might just have to forgo cutting it our selves and buying one precut with lights in the lot or wait until next Sunday and enjoy it for 4 days before we go. I'm suppose to unpack the ornaments and send my moms to her in NY, sorry mom but you might get them in time for New Years.

This year its also been really weird for gifts. Its been hard to figure out what to get my family and i'm still missing a few people. Its also been really hard to tell people what we're wanting because most of the things we need are more expensive then their budgets. I've noticed a trend in the past few years of the gift exchanges becoming smaller and less important which is nice. I'm hoping by next year we can just draw names instead of having to do the whole family. I've really enjoyed that with my in-law family.

Mostly I want to arrive into town and veg out with my family and not think about anything serious.

It's December!

Saturday got su'pa busy and then my husband got home. Turns out though that I have him now trained that if I'm sitting at the computer and he asks to watch a movie he'll go "I can wait until you're done blogging." to which last night i replied "It's Dec.1st I don't have to blog. Lets watch a movie".

I know it's now December because we got our first snow! Huge flakes came down and then would stop and then start again from about 10am to noon. Then in the afternoon it started to rain and the snow just melted. Not overly impressive but fun.


This is the standard shot of my "backyard". The apartment over looks this golf course and I must have a million shots of it at different stages.

The news I can now share is... Dec. 28th we're going to The Trans-Siberian Orchestra in Dallas! My brother gave tickets to his wife for her birthday and he asked around about who wanted to go with them. Me, me, me!!! I'm pretty sure this is my husbands and I gift to each other. Although, I know a little gift I want to get him. Anyway, I'm very excited because I love their versions of come classic Christmas music but never seen them live!

In the Christmas Exit count down there are 19 days left until the plain lifts off!!!

Back to cutting out paper stockings for me.