Out Like a Light

Old Friends

Me and Renee (Renee and I were best friends growing up...she and her family live in Georgia now, so we see them once a year at Christmas time)

Me and Renee (and some creeper)

Alyssa, Adam and Josh (Renee & Jeff's son)

Could it be?!?!?! A Hess truck....Yessssss!!!!

Have you ever seen a pink toaster oven?!?!?

Pretty in pink

Adam and Erika

Priceless!

There was a minor earthquake in Lancaster County early this morning shortly after midnight. I was talking on-line to one of Alyssa's friends from Penn State who lives in that area. All of a sudden she wrote, "Holy heck...we just had an earthquake!" I, of course, was certain it must have been something else. It wasn't....it was definitely an earthquake with a 3.3 magnitude. The gentleman quoted in this article said it best....you only have to read the first sentence....

UPDATE: The article is no longer there, not sure why, but this is basically what it said:

The gentleman quoted in the article said, "I was sitting in the tub taking a bath...I felt it in my butt...it vibrated."

Priceless!

Revealed!

One can cranberry sauce
One packet of Lipton onion soup mix
8 oz. french dressing

About 2 lbs. chicken breasts

Stir ingredients together

Pour over chicken, cook in crockpot for three hours

Enjoy!

(Thanks for the recipe, Fiona...it was delicious....and sooo easy, too!! )

A Little Of Everything

Kurt kindly cleaned my car off for me on Christmas Eve morning when I had to go to work

Icicles

Our icy bush

Quite unusual for this pair to sleep side by side

What do you think you make with these three ingredients?!!? No help from those who know!! (I'll let you know tomorrow night!)

A different setting I found on my camera

Christmas Mish Mosh

My place setting

Beautiful table

Adam had to take his right shoe off to be able to....

Drive this!!
(This was Adam's award from his Aunt Fiona for getting such good grades his first marking period! His feet and shoes are so big that his shoe rested on both the gas pedal and the brake, so he needed to take the shoe off to drive the Lotus...LOL!!)

Grandma and Grandpa

Colm cuddling with Kurt
(Doesn't he look old?!?!? LOL!!)

Conor and Colm

Alyssa and Fluffy-Muffin-Daffney-Cat
(This cat has had more names than Carter has liver pills! Conor told Alyssa last night that they actually just call it Muffin.)

I asked them to smile and I got Kurt's shiny head instead

Adam and Erika playing Wii (I believe she blew him away!)

Wii bowling on TV

Bethany from church
I asked her if I could take a picture of her with her new hat, she was sooo excited!!

Macy attempting to get into her Christmas present

All the yummy desserts

When all else fails and you don't have a spoon, just put your face right in that whipped cream!

Joseph's Song

Kurt sang this song at our Christmas morning service. It was just beautiful! For those of you fans out there, it was written by Michael Card.

Opening Gifts

My new PSU ornament...it lights up!!

Alyssa's new duffle bag (No, it's not Vera Bradley...LOL!!)
It was filled with all kinds of pink kitchen gadgets...scissors, measuring cups, can opener, ice cream scooper, bowls, potato peeler, etc.

Adam's cool shirt that Alyssa got him

Cool scarf Nani knitted for Alyssa

Yeahhh....Guitar Hero!

Woo Hoo....a muffler!!

A helmet maybe??

NO! It's a pink colander!!

What a shock!!

Pink scarf from Adam that Nani knitted

Hmmm....what could it be?!!?

Alyssa's new GPS

More pics to come tomorrow...it's off to bed now, though, as some of us have to work tomorrow...yuck.

Christmas Eve

Our bell ensemble played for the 11pm Christmas Eve service. We played two songs, one of them being, O Little Town of Bethlehem. Alyssa video'd it during our short rehearsal prior to the service. You might hear Sandy, our director, counting at a few points in the song. We had to videotape it in three sections, as it takes wayyyy too long to upload onto the blog otherwise.

PSP

(Penn State pasta....that is!!)

I finally made the Penn State pasta salad that Alyssa gave me for Christmas last year!! The pasta is in the shape of a lion. It was a last minute decision, so I didn't have lots to add to it, but did have a red pepper and some sliced pepperoni that was meant to go on the personal pan pizzas for supper tomorrow night!! It had a powdered mix that I added vinegar and oil to, which served as the dressing. It was pretty tasty! Go Lions!!

Wow!

We have friends who have a vacation home in Vermont; this is what they found when they emergently went up there last week after the huge ice storm in the New England states. They couldn't get to their house via the road, as lines were down, so had to walk across the lake to get there! It's a gorgeous picture; fortunately disaster was averted as they kept the house warm with kerosene heaters, so pipes didn't burst.

Multiple Bles8ings!

The things you do for your kids!! I stood in line tonite from 4:50 pm until a little after 7 pm (I had taken 3 Ibuprofen before I left home...LOL!!) for signatures from Kate Gosselin of the famed Jon & Kate Plus 8 television show. She was at Hackman's, our local Christian book store for a book signing. My friend Nancy and her daughter Rachel were with me for the big event. We decided to get there at 4:30 just to be sure we got a parking spot; well, I got there about 4:40 pm and their parking lot was already full, we had to park at a realty office across the street! Supposedly some people showed up at 2 pm already to get in line! By the time I got my place in line, I guessed there were already 75-100 people in front of me!!

The time actually went faster than what I expected it would; Nancy and I talked about lots of stuff and in between, the women around us would join in on various topics. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to stay vertical for that long, but it really wasn't as bad as what I figured it would be! I think all of us got a little discouraged when we learned at 6:30 that she hadn't even arrived yet!!

Fortunately, she showed up about 6:45 and we were actually done and out the door by 7:10! We guess-timated there were probably about 500-700 people there, plus when we left, the parking lot was FULL of people standing there. There was a crowd of people standing outside at the two windows by where she was seated; they had their phone cameras and digital cameras trying to take pics through the window! It was funny to see all these faces peering into the window!!

The whole thing was very anti-climactic though....they rushed you through the book signing, there really was no opportunity to talk to her at all, forget any photo ops and they shooshed you out as soon as you were done. She signed two books for me (one for Martha and one for Sarah, Alyssa's roommate) and one DVD (for Alyssa).

Line towards the back of the store

Line towards the front of the store

Me at my spot for over two hours

I had plenty of reading material at my home away from home :)

Nancy and Rachel

Another shot of Kate