SHOP 'TIL YOU DROP!

We had a lot of fun activities leading up to Christmas. On Saturday, I took 6 boys (Nick, Chris, Anthony & Aleks Debski, Nick Carr, and Tony Moore) to the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse to see the gingerbread house display. Since the boys were less than thrilled with looking at gingerbread houses, I took them all to laser tag afterwards to make up for it. On Sunday, we spent some time with our friend and neighbor, Louise, and exchanged gifts. We're so lucky to have her live just across the street! We also went to see National Treasure 2 - which was not as good as number 1. For most of the evening, we helped our neighbors, the Haynes, whose basement flooded with 2 feet of water. It was a big mess! Thank goodness the insurance company is paying for a new furnace, water heater, etc. On Monday (Xmas Eve), we had the Debski and Charles families over to the house for food and exchanging gifts. Celina make some awesome cookies! The Charles' got us a Scrabble game which we played - Dave won, I lost very badly! I'm going to get a Scrabble dictionary. Watch out Dave! Finally, we went to midnight mass at St. Mary's. I sang in the choir and had my big solo for O Holy Night. The solo went fine - Nick recorded it on his cell phone and I sounded better than I thought.

Christmas Day was very nice and quiet. We opened presents, played with our new stuff, telephoned friends and relatives, and had a nice dinner. Nick's favorite present was his new iPod, Chris' favorite was the Stronghold computer game. I liked my gift card for AC Moore so that I could buy more scrapbook supplies!

The day after Christmas is typically a big shopping day for us, and this year was no exception. Nick and I started out early at Walmart where I found a set of Christmas dishes for $4.50, the bargain of the day. We then went to AC Moore where I used most of my gift card and also to Hallmark where I got a few ornaments. Later, we picked up Chris and Art and headed for the Fingerlakes Mall. I got a few things including half price calendars. Chris tried to use his GameStop gift card, but we ran into problems with the card balance being $0. It took several phone calls over the course of the day, and another visit to the store to finally resolve the issue. In all, I spent over 2 hours on this one problem - I am officially sick and tired of GameStop. But Chris did get his games, so he's happy.

Countdown to Christmas

Only 5 more days until Christmas! I'm pretty much done with all the shopping and wrapping, so I'm looking forward to some fun! I have a whole 12 days off work and plan on having some fun parties, going to some movies and museums, and just vegging out.

Scrapbook Party - On Saturday Dec. 15, I was joined by 6 of my scrapbook friends for a fun night of food, talk, and scrapbooking. This was the annual Christmas scrapbook crop that I always have in my basement. I got 2 pages from our San Francisco vacation done.

BLIZZARD - On Sunday December 16, we were hit by about 2 feet of snow. Monday, the schools were closed. We kept ourselves occupied by

1. shoveling snow (a lot)

2. playing in the snow - Nick snow boarded, Chris raced his car in the snow

• 3. watching movies - Lord of the Rings marathon on TNT
• 4. racing slot cars on the big track in the basement
• 5. shoveling snow again
• 6. reading

7. NOT playing on the computer

Happy Holidays!!!

This past weekend, we had a lot of Christmas activities. We got a live tree from Vitale's and decorated it with lights, Hallmark ornaments, and photo ornaments. Nick and Chris made a beautiful gingerbread house - the best yet! And Art and I attended the annual McQuay Christmas party with our friends and had a great time visiting with them and dancing.

Nick volunteered for 1.5 hours at the homeless shelter on Sunday where he played a mean game of hangman. On Tuesday, he played basketball at Henniger High - Auburn won! Next games are on Thursday and Friday.

Chris is working on mastering the Rubik's cube. I have no doubt that he'll be able to do it.

HAIR WATCH - 7 inches long, only 3 more to go until donation time! Estimate for the BIG CUT is July 2008.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK - "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. "

SCRAPBOOK IN PROGRESS - I'm currently working on scrapbooking our August 2007 trip to California. It's been hard to find time to work on this, so it's really going slow. Click on any of the photos to enlarge.

This is my first blog posting, so I'm not sure that I'm doing this right - but, I'll figure it out eventually.

Things have been pretty busy this week. And....I also need to finish Christmas shopping, clean the house, put up the tree, etc. Busy Busy Busy!

On Monday, I attended the All American Boy's Choir performance at St. Mary's. It was wonderful! On the way to the concert, I got into a fender-bender. Not wonderful! The van and I don't have a scratch. The other van had some minor fender damage. (which will probably cost a million dollars to get fixed!)

On Tuesday, school was closed due to the big winter snow. Nick and Chris played outside practically the whole day!

Today, Art, Nick, and I are supposed to attend training at the homeless shelter. Nick and I are scheduled to volunteer on Sunday. Nick is not too thrilled about it, but hopefully it will help him to build character.

On Thursday, Nick has a basketball game at Central Square. I'll have to miss choir practice again. Hope my big Christmas solo goes okay.

On Friday, Art and I are going to Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant for a party. They invited all the people who helped work on the restaurant construction. I didn't help, but Art did!

On Saturday, Art and I are going to the annual McQuay Christmas party. And I'm getting my hair done. I am so over this long hair thing, but I have a few more inches to go before I can get it cut and donated.

Quote of the Day/Week - And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. ~Dr. Seuss