HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My Brother is getting married this week, so I am here at my parent’s house with most the rest of my family, and we have been having a pretty good time. We have been getting a few things ready for the wedding, and getting ready for new years with the fam. It is nice to come and spend time with my family; I do not get this chance very often.
Landon is playing this weekend of course as it is a big weekend for music. I hope that we both have a good new year in our separate parts of the country, and will be able to celebrate when we are both together again.
I hope that all my friends and family have Great new years, and here is to the New Year.
Out with the old, in with the new.
HAPPY 2009 everyone!

Christmas 08

We feel so blessed to be able to celebrate Christmas together. I am not going to write a whole lot, but I am going to post some pictures of the day!
We hope that each of our friends and family have a great Christmas, and get to spend time with their families. We have had a fantasitc time.


The Spread.


Turkey


Fruit and Cheese Tray


Veggie Tray


Ready to Eat! (Yes we are still in our PJ's it is Christmas!!! Who gets dressed?)


Before we started Unwrapping, but after Santa came!


Another picture of before


Opened Gifts
Thank you everyone!


Closer Shot of opened Gifts!


Butch's new stairs


Landon playing with his new stuff!

Where is the spirit?

I have been very reflective of late, With Christmas right around the corner, I am missing that Christmas spirit that I need. My mind has been bogged down by everyday problems, and reminiscence.
I have a friend who got married this year, and this will be her first Christmas as a wife. This made me think back to my first Christmas as a wife. It was a grand Christmas. We had very little money, yet it was probably the best Christmas we have had as a couple. Even without kids, it seems that life has taken over, I sometimes wish that I could go back to that time, and walk around, and feel those wondrous feelings again. Even go back to being a child, and the wonder that Christmas held. Time spent with Family, and traditions.
Perhaps the spirit will come, and we can have another grand Christmas!
I am for sure looking forward to next year. Perhaps I can make more of it than I did this year. 2008 has been very taxing.
I have to continuously sit my self down, and have a pep talk. I could have it so bad.
My husband could be off fighting a war instead of off playing music. I could have lost my home in the loan crisis. Or everything for that matter. I have a very full life! If guess sometimes I just catch myself feeling sorry for myself for the trials that I have, and forget to look around and see how good I really have it.
Perhaps tomorrow.

Now what

Today was my company’s Christmas party. Last year the Christmas party was lavish. It was at night, and it was all the food, and drink you could want, as well as games of all sort. And some live entertainment.
This year with all the cutbacks that everyone is doing, the Christmas party was during the day. They still provided lunch. There was still lots of games, and entertainment. I was sad that my Husband would not be able to come and hang out with me at this party (he was probably thrilled that he did not have to come hang out at my work party!)
About 2:00, after the party was winding down, our boss came around and told us that if we wanted to, we could go ahead and go home for the day.
Well, of coarse if your boss tells you you can go home, you do. My problem was Landon is gigging, and so I really did not have any reason to come home early except to surprise the dog to let him our of his kennel early. (like he even understood it was early!)
So I came home wondering what to do with myself. This is probably the worst part of being married and not having any kids. When my better half is not home, sometimes I am incredibly bored. Then I start to think since that is all I have to do.
When I start to think, I usually get myself in trouble, so once again, I should have found something productive to do today instead of thinking.
I thought of all sorts of things that upset me, and so here I am at 10:00 blogging about nothing, because there is no way that I could blog about my thoughts. So I am trying to waste time so that I don’t keep thinking!

Tis the Season

Every Year at my place of employment they have an “angel tree” where you adopt an angel for Christmas and get these kids some Christmas gifts. For the last two years I have been the chosen one of our team to choose the angels, and collect the donations, and do the shopping.
This is something that I do not mind doing at all. Which goes against everything I do mind…I hate to shop, and I hate to spend money.
Difference here, is it is not all my money, and it is for a child that otherwise may not get anything. So I really enjoy going out and getting these gifts.
They are so sad in some of the things they put on their slip as “needs” We “adopted” 3 year old twin girls, and got they a coat, and shoes as well as little sweatshirts, and we got the Barbie collections movie(three movies) and a pink Barbie CD player. So they got everything that they asked for and a bit more.
It is always hard for me to do these things on my own without a little nudge.
Not because I don’t want to help, but it always seems like I go through the season thinking of where the money is going to come from for the gifts that I need to buy, and where all the time is going to come from to do baking if I am going to give that sort of gift, and to go to all the “parties” that we are invited to, and still decorate the house, do all of that jazz, and I don’t even have kids!!
Anyway, it seems that the season starts, then it is over, and I never even took time to really “give”.
I always strive to be a better person at seeing those in need, and doing something for them. And usually the rest of the year I really do pretty good, but the time when perhaps they need things more because of the cold and such, is when I don’t think I have the time….
There was a tradition that my family did when I was growing up that I have tried to continue in some form since I have left home, and that is…
We would get two or three big cardboard boxes, and fill them with food. Turkeys, potatoes, you know the such, and then if we had anything else, gift type things, we would include those as well. Then we would carry each box to a family’s house that we felt would benefit from this, drop it off, ring the doorbell, and run.
We had such a great time doing this, and we never really knew how the family felt, or if they did indeed benefit from this gift, but we always had a good time doing it.
That is the type of giving I like. The kind that is anonymous.
I hope that this year when things are tough that we can all find the true meaning of Christmas, and enjoy our families! I am certainly going to do my best.

Thanksgiving the Oklahoma Way

This was Last years goods...





As it turns out, Landon had a gig on Thanksgiving day, so we threw tradition out the window, and headed to Oklahoma to a Casino to spend our Holiday.
We got everything ready to go, and realized that we had not yet ate breakfast, and it was getting closer to lunch time, so we planned to grab some fast food once we were out of town…Easier said that done on Thanksgiving day! We stopped at 4 places before we found one that was open. As it turned out, it was one of my least favorite places, but we made due!
We than drove another 5 or so hours, and got to the Casino, went to check into our room only to find out that the Casino had been without power for a few hours, so there was no TV, and no Thanksgiving dinner…We were not even sure there was going to be power for the band to play.
But they worked feverishly, and got the power back on, that is when the fun really started…because there were people gambling when the power went out, the casino had to match each of these people with the machine they were on (via the security cameras) Then get them all their money.
The gamblers were quite restless, and the Casino’s do not sell any alcohol on Holidays, so everyone was double mad…That is when the Casino decided that if they could not sell it they would give it away. So there was beer on the house all night for everyone…It made the band happy, because the beer of coarse was only to be had in the “bar” area where they were playing, so they had quite a crowd!
Lets go back to the No thanksgiving Dinner part. I was sorely disappointed since I was looking forward to good dinner.
Well, since the power had been off, the band actually went on an hour later, so Landon and I went in search of a Thanksgiving dinner! We figured that most regular places were closed, so we headed down the freeway to find a truck stop with a diner. We found one, and lo and behold they had a Thanksgiving dinner Buffet. It was definitely Truck stop food, but I was so happy to find thanksgiving dinner, that I did not mind at all!
All in all, it was a Thanksgiving to go down in the books as definitely out of the norm. But we really did have a good time! I was content to be able to spend it with my husband.