Happy 2010 to Everyone!

Yes, I do realize that it is 3 days past the new year, but I have been a little busy. I worked New Year's Eve until 5:00 and then rode with a friend to Memphis to take her daughters to a church gathering. After that, we drove to another friend's house to ring in the New Year. We had a lot of fun visiting and playing games and praying that the children did not get hurt playing with fireworks. Yes, there were "adults" out there. I say it like that because they were old enough to be called adults and they had children of their own, but most of them just acted like kids anyway. Everyone is safe and unharmed, I am glad to say. The closer it got to the New Year, everyone came in the house and visited. Several of us moms played Apples to Apples. I have never played this before but it is so much fun. Unfortunately, you need several people to play to make it a lot of fun and everyone needs to be at least 12 to really understand the game. But, if you are having a big gathering and people are from all age groups, it can be a blast to play.

We left our friends house around 12:45 to drive home and sleep.

The next day, Kirsten, Alec, and I drove to my in-laws to help take down their Christmas decorations. I thought that we would not be able to get everything taken down, boxed back up, and taken to the attic which is two flights up. But my kids were real troopers. They got in there and worked very hard. They were taking down decorations and helping to box them up. Alec was really helpful and carried up many, many boxes. My mother-in-law has a very large collection of Christmas Village pieces and this collection alone takes many boxes. With my kids help, we were able to get everything done by 2:45 and headed home to eat HOMEMADE tacos at my mother's house. This is something that we all look forward to. Everyone in our extended family loves taco night. My mother mixes us the batter and I cook them on a griddle over our gas stove (they cook more evenly on gas) and then we all get around the table and enjoy. This night we had a few extras and served 20 people -- great food, great company. After supper was over and the kitchen was cleaned, we started a game of Trivial Pursuit. However, my family playing Trivia can be a little much for "outsiders" to handle, so I made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to purchase our own edition of Apples to Apples and we played that instead. It was so much fun and in this game you can be goofy and silly and that adds to the fun.

The next morning (Saturday) I got up early and went in to work to prepare for the first of the year rush and we had a big rush of people. We close and 2:00 and we were so ready for that. When I got home, Mom had already made a bunch of food for our pastor's family (his wife fell and broke her arm very badly while ice skating) and they were coming home and we thought that we could fix some food that could be easily gotten out of the freezer and heated up. She cooked pizzas (homemade, of course), garlic bread, cookies, some of Ms. Heather's famous chili, and I cooked a bunch of waffles (homemade, again) that can be frozen and heated quickly and one-handed, we hope.

Today, it is to church and then to the gym and hopefully to bed early, as I have to work again tomorrow and then we start back to school on Tuesday. We also have to start running again 3-4 days a week. The kids were already supposed to be running again, but they have had runny noses and coughs so I have not pushed them. But we are starting this week.

Hope you all had a great start to this New Year that is full of hope and possibilities.