Christmas 2009

So how many months do we plan and prepare for Christmas? How many times do we tell the Christmas story to the children and grandchildren so they know the true meaning of Christmas? How many times do we shake our heads saddened by the news of constant attacks by those who do not want to celebrate Christmas and feel neither should we! Yet with all of this activity and hustle and bustle we find ourselves finally sitting around the Christmas tree, some of us are tired from putting the last presents out after the children fall asleep. Others are just tired from playing games with family late into the night. Perhaps a few just can't believe we are getting up before 8am to open presents. No matter how we come to this moment, here we are, sitting waiting for the Mom or Grammy to say "This is how we are doing it this year!" Amazingly the children who have been looking at the ever growing presents that seem to show up day after day under the tree, sit still! Even the littlest child is watching and learning from the older children on how this process works. Then suddenly an adult grabs the first present and says who it is for. Excitement fills the childrens faces as they finally get one of the presents they have been looking and poking at for at least a week! Parents and others sit and warmly smile as they watch the children excitedly rip into each present! They giggle or laugh as they see a child do a funny war like dance as they get some expected or unexpected toy or gift! What seems like a slow process each present is passed out and opened. The excitement slowly ebbs and the cleanup continues from ripped open packages and boxes. Then as the children run off to thier rooms to put new toys away someone looks at their watch or the clock on the wall and they realize all of these presents were opened and touched within an hour or so. All of that planning and purchasing is over in a few shourt minutes! Yet we will do it again, next year! Now comes the decision which parent can sneek back into bed for a few more hours of sleep. While the other "Dads!" lay on the floor and play with the child and thier new toy or video game. Amazingly most Moms are okay with Dads playing video games on Christmas day, as long as they get to go back to bed! Later the Christmas dinner is prepared and we over eat for the second time in two months and tell ourselves we will do better next year!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, Mamaw came for Christmas! She visited Ricky and Bart during the first part of the month and really enjoyed herself. We also had a huge suprise when Roger Jr, Alyssa and Madison and Little Roger showed up on Wednesday night from Texas! What a wonderful surprise! We sorely missed Micah who had to stay in Wyoming to keep working on the railroad and Leo wh was visiting his dad in Kansas City. Maybe one day we will have them all for Christmas!

Mamaw and Lil' Roger

Grammy and her Lil' Rog

Lee Phillip or "Philly" as Grammy calls him.

Maddie isn't she beautiful!

Taylor James "TJ" and his 1st present.

Triniti and her new Christmas dress!

Chance and his new comforter for his bed!

Lil' Roger

Like Father like Son!

I'm sure I saw this is in the movie "Forrest Gump"!

Just a great picture of Roger Jr! The women folk never like thier pictures on Christmas morning!

Dec 09 and I'm Late!

Okay, okay! I know several of you have checked this blog and wonder why I don't update it with something new! All I can say is I'm sorry and I'll try to do better. It was a crazy few month leading up to today. While I had the chance to get the last few "Outdoor Projects" done before the weather turned cold I had to do that. First was the Storage shed! It's 95 % done. The outside is all complete but I have the inside shelves and perhaps a window for Grammy to look out at her yard to finish it off. The shelves will be so she can do early plantings with a grow light. Of course that takes electricity which I haven't run yet. One thing at a time.

Next is a last minute sidewalk. Grammy has wanted a way for the family to use the garage in the winter to take off boots and coats instead of the front door. Last year the front door was always a mess. So I quickly dug out the sidewalk layout and formed it up and them put the entire family to work. Nathan was a HUGE help! The sidewalk looks pretty good for an amateur! It looks like we have pretty much train everyone to use the side door.

Then there was the shelves in the garage by the kitchen door for Grammy to put her extra kitchen things on. Again Nathan was a big help! Following that I started the repair of the kitchen light area after the kitchen fire. That is not done yet but I have time.

Work has been very busy and I'm quite tired when I get home. Ten hour days followed by a 30 to 45 minute car drive home doesn't leave much room for much except dinner and get ready for bed. 4am comes awfully early!

Of course we have Heather and Nathan living with us now, which makes for a very busy house. It gets mostly quiet around 9:30 pm. They close on thier house in SD this week and if all goes well they will buy the new one before the end of the year. Matha and Leo will move in with them which will leave Sara and the kids here.

Of course there is the issue of San Diego. I still haven't heard anything at this point. I will call my friend there after the New Year if I haven't heard anything by then. Again, if I don't get the position that is okay, but it would be nice to get the pay raise. We will see! If it's meant to be then it will happen!

Christmas is fast approaching and we will have Mamaw stay with us thru the holidays. We flew her out here on Dec. 4th. Due to some rearranging with my brothers in Wyoming, I took her to Rock Springs on the 6th and she stayed a week with Ricky and now she is with Bart and his family. I'm really glad she has had the opportunity to go there and see everyone. It's hard to be with everyone all the time but this is the best we can do. I just hope she is happy!

Last night was a strange one! Mondays are normally hard on me as it's the first day back to work and I normally don't get alot of sleep the night before. Makes for a long day! Well due to some extra work taskings I was going to go into work this morning at 8am instead of 6am. That allowed me to stay up with Grammy as she wanted to do some shoppig last night. Well needless to say we got home around 10pm and I saw the heavy snow on the bushes on the side of the house that were possibly damaging the bushes so as we walked in i stopped to clean off as much as I could really quickly. I was close to being done when I started feeling really tired and just generally didn't feel well. I came in and told Grammy and Heather I wasn't feeling well and my heart felt like it was racing! Grammy touched my nech and said it feels alright to me, I think yor just tired! Go to bed and get some sleep! So I started to do just that. However by the ime I rawled into bed I was not feeling good at all. My chest felt like I had one of the grnadkids on my chest! I knew something wasn't right! So I went down stairs and found the little blood pressure machine we have and strapped it on. My BP was like 130 over 83 and my heart rate was around 120 bpm. Martha insisted I they call 911 or take to the hospital but I didn't want to go just yet!. Basically it stayed like that until almost 11pm when I bored down and got it to stop or slow down finally! I know many of you will tell me I should have gone in or called 911. I just felt it wasn't time to do that. However in hindsight, if it happens again I will do just that. This has scared me a bit! I need to stay off the chocolate and stop eating the kid friendly food that we seem to eat around here! I take my vitamins and I need to go see a family doctor for a check up anyway for some regular tests. So I will get things looked at!

Okay, I will do better at updating this thing and I want to say Merry Christmas!