2017 in Review

As I reflect back on my life, 2016 definitely was one of my toughest years emotionally. The two most traumatic events that year were losing my dearly loved Mom and adjusting to Paul's hours at work each week more than doubling as he left Bucknell to go back to the family business. Although I have still felt those two losses this year (for example Paul didn't join us on either family vacation this year), they have become the new "normal." Although it was nice to see my Dad so happy when he started dating Margie, seeing my dad married to someone else definitely was an emotional setback for me in grieving the loss of my mom. If I had to pick the biggest event of 2017 in my life, it would definitely be me going back to work. When Paul announced his decision to leave the field of chemistry, I put a lot of effort in trying to go back to work, but nothing came about of those efforts. This summer put in one application at Kutztown and then resubmitted my application to the temporary pool at Bloomsburg. I had contacted the new department chair while in the process of applying for a certification through PDE, and she had encouraged me to resubmit my application. My hopes were not up very high at all because I had been unable to teach as an adjunct there the past few years due to their enrollment decreasing and also the faculty being allowed to take 3-6 credits of overload in a semester. It was truly a shock when she called me in August and asked if I'd like to teach. In a short time frame it evolved from a PT to a FT position, and I am teaching FT again next semester albeit the contract I signed in August was just for one semester. There are supposedly 3 faculty retiring before August, which would mean my job security is very good, and the department is submitting a request for a tenure line, which would enable me to be permanent again in August 2019.

I had always planned to be a stay-at-home mom, but I continued to teach at the university the first four years of Nadia's life. Since I had juggled teaching and having two little ones at home before, I wasn't expecting it to be quite as challenging as it was this last semester. The differences were that back then I wasn't homeschooling (and now I am homeschooling grades K, 2, and 4) and those years I wasn't teaching new courses. This time around I had almost no notice (signed the contract the fourth day of the semester), and two of the courses were brand new preparations for me and neither were in my "comfort zone" so to speak. Although I expect this next semester will be more manageable as I am trying to have everything ready to go by January 22, I am even more encouraged by the fact that if I continue to work FT, Paul is planning to cut back his hours (and work more from home) by August 2018. This is contingent on him hiring someone to do some of his current duties at the plant. If he can help with some of the homeschooling and tasks around the house (doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, etc.), then that would make my workload far more manageable. I love homeschooling the kids, and I love teaching at the university, but it's too much to try to teach 3 kids at home while maintaining a FT job outside of the home while also doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. It will be wonderful if he is able to resume going with us on family vacations and just spend more time with the kids in general.

Here are some of the blessings from 2017:

1. From 2012-2016 Oliver was hospitalized at least once a year, but in 2017 none of us had a surgery (aside from Paul's mole removal) and none of us were hospitalized. PTL! Oliver has really turned a corner and now seems to handle a cold the same way his siblings do instead of a cold leading to him needing to be on oxygen.

2. We got new carpet in Nadia's bedroom and the master bedroom. Next on the list is Ian's bedroom. I got a new kitchen faucet in April, which was a huge improvement.

3. We enjoyed visits to four amusement parks - Knoebels, Idlewild, Dutch Wonderland, and DelGrosso's.

4. The kids and I enjoyed spending a week on Long Island, NY with my Aunt Janet in July and a week in Indiana and Chicago, IL with my cousin Sam's family and my sister Wendy's family in April.

5. Going back to work at Bloomsburg University! I love teaching, and the extra income has enabled us to afford smaller things like getting take-out pizza and bigger things like making a lot of progress on paying down the principal on our mortgage. We've *almost* cut it in half over the past 12 months! That will be a very happy day when that is paid off! Our increased income has also enabled us to give more. We have been sponsoring four children through Compassion, but when I found out I was going back to work I decided to sponsor a boy in Guatemala for a year through a missionary friend. The money we paid has enabled him to go to school this year.

6. Nadia and Ian had their very first experience with snow skiing in February with Grandpa and myself.

7. I got my first pair of bifocal glasses. They have been such a blessing because I am not having nearly as many headaches. 

8. Nadia enjoyed her second full week at Camp Susque as well as six days of theater camp which culminated in three performances of Madagascar, Jr. 

9. We purchased our first piece of exercise equipment (an elliptical). I need to use it more in 2018 than I did in 2017. I prefer running or walking outside, but it's nice to have something that I can use no matter what the weather is like outside and also when I am at home alone with the three kids. Paul said he wants to start using it as well. 

10. Tab was a wonderful babysitter/ "substitute teacher" for homeschooling the kids two days a week during the fall semester. 

11. Paul's mom is responding very well to the latest chemo treatments. She only has two more to go!

12. The Steelers finished out their season 13-3!

13. I love our new laser printer. If I could go back in time, I would have bought one years ago. I love that it is wireless, and we haven't had to change the toner yet!

Change of plans

For several weeks the plan had been for the kids and I to drive to Maryland after my dentist appointment this afternoon. I was planning on spending the day at Mount Vernon with them tomorrow. Yesterday I started taking down Christmas decorations because I didn't want to deal with that on January 2. I also made split pea and ham soup and also potato soup so Paul would have food for dinner while we were in Maryland (in addition to some leftover rigatoni and meatballs and beef stew). Then I checked the weather forecast. I was checking it to make sure we wouldn't be encountering snow/ice while driving down. I didn't see any of that in the forecast, but I saw that it's supposed to be very cold here in PA and in MD during the next week. The high for Maryland is to be 24 degrees on Thursday. Although some of the activities I had planned for us to do on Thursday would be indoors (chocolate making demonstration, mansion tour, etc.), many of the activities would have been outside (camel chat, fifing demonstration, etc.). Having recently spent 2 hours outside in the cold waiting in line for the National Aquarium tickets earlier this month, I had no desire to visit Mount Vernon if the temperature will be in the twenties. I would like to take the kids there sometime in 2018, but I'd rather go on a warmer day. So now we are planning to drive down tomorrow morning. Wendy's family will be driving to Maryland from Williamsburg on Friday morning.

Yesterday I did a wide variety of tasks such as cleaning out part of the refrigerator, dusting the tops of the kitchen cabinets and top of the refrigerator, putting away Christmas gifts, made two kinds of soup, did five loads of laundry, did a load of dishes, worked on a conference proposal that is due in two weeks, etc. This week is my only week where I have a break from both homeschooling and the university. Next week I'll get back to homeschooling, which will limit how many hours I have to work on writing lesson plans, syllabi, etc. January 22 is going to be here before I know it.

Paul was building Legos with Ian yesterday morning, but then he started not feeling well and spent the afternoon and evening either in bed or in the bathroom. He might have IBS like his mom and one of his cousins. I had forgotten that the same thing happened last year in December when he ate too many cashews. Hopefully it is permanently etched in my mind from now on to NOT buy him cashews. For years I've bought big containers of cashews for my dad, Paul, and Paul's dad for their birthdays and Christmas (all three of their birthdays are within 15 days of Christmas). I also got him peanut M&Ms. He has been eating a lot of the cashews and peanut M&Ms the past few days and he paid for it yesterday. I feel badly for him because when I first met him a few of his favorite foods were fish (a variety of kinds), lobster tail, cashews, macadamia nut cookies, and candy with peanuts in it (such as Payday candy bars and peanut M&Ms). Over the last 16 years he first developed an allergy to seafood. The only seafood he can eat now is canned tuna, and it seems he also needs to avoid nuts. I need to come up with a new gift idea for him before December 2018 rolls around! At least he can still eat peanut butter cups Swedish fish, and Cookies and Cream candy bars (his other favorite kinds of candy). He must have been feeling better today as he went to work this morning. 

Thankful Tuesday

1. I'm eternally grateful that Jesus loved us enough to humble himself as a baby so that 30+  years later he could die on the cross to pay the price of our sins. It's so easy to get distracted by the shopping lists, wrapping paper, decorations, food, music, etc. and forget the reason for the season!

2. We had a wonderful day last Tuesday with Grandma and Pop Pop celebrating Ian and Pop Pop's birthdays! We have gone to Lancaster several times in June to celebrate Nadia's birthday, but it was our first time going in December for Ian's birthday. It was also our first time at the Turkey Hill Experience, and we ended the day with dinner at Applebee's.

3. Part of my choir rehearsal on Wednesday night was a Christmas party. We had a white elephant gift exchange. I brought some of our excess Halloween candy (because I never got around to exchanging it for money at the dentist, oops!), and the gift I received was a mostly used scented candle. The kids enjoyed their Christmas festivities at

AWANA that night including shopping for gifts for friends and family. Oliver gave me a Christmas throw (blanket) and gave Paul a fishing rod (which cracked him up as he's not into fishing). Nadia gave me a Christmas decoration and Paul a measuring tape. Ian gave Oliver a Lego set for beginners.

4. I hadn't used Coke caps for a few months but then I used them quite a bit over the past month for things such as $10 at Amazon, $5 at Target, 2 movie tickets, 2 large popcorns at the movie theater, 1 drink at the movie theater, and an ornament on Shutterfly. I didn't play their (free) instant win game the first four days it was available, but I started playing it on Dec 20 and thus far have won $25 off Shutterfly, 2 free drinks at the movie theater, 1 free movie ticket, and a small plush polar bear. I also played the Kellogg's instant win game. Last year I won one of the big prizes (7,500 points) the first day I played. This year I only won 50-100 points a day, but eventually I'll use those points toward something at Shutterfly.

Oliver was thrilled he got cds of Music from the times of the Crusades!

5. I placed two big orders with Shutterfly last week that would have totaled over $500 between the two orders, and yet I only paid less than $2 total between the two. Coupons are a wonderful thing!

6. On Saturday the kids and I enjoyed seeing Ferdinand at the theater, eating lots of popcorn, and drinking strawberry lemonade and fruit punch for less than $5 total.

7. On our way to the movie we stopped at Sears for possibly the last time, as it's closing next month. Boo hoo. I used a $15 off coupon to get Nadia a winter coat for $20 that was originally $70.

8. Since we ate so much popcorn, we didn't want to eat a big dinner. I used a $10 coupon for Dunkin Donut, which meant our dinner cost me less than $4. Since then I got another $10 coupon for Dunkin Donuts. Yay!

9. On Friday night there was a Christmas program at church. The Soul Patrol kids' choir sang three songs. We only

stayed for half of the program because it didn't end until 9pm. Nadia left her basketball practice for a few minutes to sing and then went back to her practice. It was convenient that her practice is held in one of our church's gyms.

10. On Sunday we enjoyed the Candlelight Service in the morning. Two years ago I remember it was very nerve wracking for me as Paul didn't come with us and I was nervous about my 3, 6, and 7 year olds each holding a candle during several verses of Silent Night and Joy to the World. Last year it was much less stressful because Paul and my Dad were with us, and this Sunday I was only responsible for Oliver as Paul had his eye on Nadia and Ian. I always love singing Christmas carols, especially O Holy Night.

11. Yesterday we had a wonderful time with Paul's family. The kids are still enjoying their new toys today, the boys are wearing new clothes from Grandma, and Oliver has already worn his new gloves. The food was also delicious! I received a gift of a win by the Steelers (12-3 record at the moment). Today we were able to FaceTime with the Towfighis, which was wonderful as we won't be seeing them in person this month.

12. Paul had a three day weekend as he gave his employees off today. It was nice to have three days in a row with him.

Merry Christmas!

Oliver got in our bed at 6:15AM even though the previous few days he had slept until 7:30 each day. Ian joined us around 6:45AM. I had made monkey bread for breakfast on Sunday morning, and we ate more of that this morning (all except for Paul who doesn't like things with cinnamon). We left our house a little before 9:00AM and drove to Paul's parents house. They live one hour away. We opened presents, the kids played with their new toys, and then we had a lovely ham dinner. Millie had cooked most of the meal. I always enjoy Paul's mom's baked beans! The kids had fun playing with their cousin, Shawn despite the age gap (he's 21). He played with them on the computer, on the Wii, played hide and seek with them, laser tag (one of Oliver's gifts), etc. The Steelers had a decisive victory today (34-6), which was a nice Christmas gift for my Dad and I (and Steeler fans in general). If only the Steelers  had held on to their lead last week against the Patriots or the Bills had beat the Patriots last week.... I got a Steelers purse today from Paul's parents. I would never have thought of buying something like that, but I love it! It's just the right size for me, as I don't like big purses. Because the Steelers had a solid lead, we didn't stay until the end of the game. We got home at 8:00pm. Oliver slept the whole way home. Ian slept during part of the ride in the van, but once we were home he wanted to start working on a new Lego set. Oliver went right to bed. Ian is hoping that his last Christmas gift from us (Gru) will be delivered tomorrow to our mailbox. If not, I know he'll have fun building another 1,100+ piece Lego set tomorrow. He got two sets today and built the smaller one (maybe 500 pieces?) with Pop Pop. We are thankful for each gift, and most importantly for the best gift of all - Jesus!!!

9.5 years old!

Nadia gets to open gifts on her half-birthday and her birthday because our tradition is to do our immediate family gift exchange on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day they usually get to open their gifts from Paul's side of the family, and sometime later (probably Dec 29 or 30 this year) they open their gifts from my side of the family. Nadia is excited about the fact that she turns ten years old in six months. For one thing, it means that she will be getting her ears pierced!

Nadia is a social butterfly who loves to try just about any activity (although she's not a fan of dissecting things - even owl pellets were gross to her). In the past 9.5 years she's only declined riding a ride ONE time. It was at a fair, and she thought it spun you upside down too many times. She loves to be on stage whether that involves singing a solo, singing in a choir, performing in a musical (Madagascar, Jr this year as well as GPS at two different churches), or having a speaking part. She's really hoping that in May she'll have one of the lead roles in the kids' choir musical at church.

Although she's usually the weakest player on the team, she enjoys a variety of sports. This year she played on a basketball team, softball team, and flag football team. She doesn't mind being the only girl on the team, although now she's on an all girls basketball team for the first time (grades 4-6). She also loves taking swimming lessons, horseback riding lessons, tennis lessons, diving lessons, and ice skating lessons. She was heartbroken when she found out she won't be able to take ice skating lessons in 2018 because it conflicts with her brothers' basketball practices.

She enjoys being in AWANA. Her favorite night of the year of AWANA is when they go shopping for gifts for friends and family; they did this last Wednesday, and she was counting down the days and then the hours to that event! She takes notes in church when she attends the worship service, but she prefers to go to Kidzway. She buys candy with her Kids Cash, and if they don't have any, then she gives her Kids Cash to other kids in her class.

She spends a lot more time in her bedroom these days than she used to in prior years. When she's in her room she's usually either reading (read over 100 chapter books this year!), playing with paper dolls, listening to Adventures in Odyssey cd's, coloring with colored pencils in an adult coloring book, or playing with Barbie dolls. She still plays with stuffed animals or Legos with Ian from time to time, but they don't play together as much as they used to since she spends much more time alone in her bedroom.

Reading is her favorite subject in school, and Math is her least favorite although her attitude has been improving lately (yay!).  Her favorite book series (the ones she is prone to read again and again) include Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, Ramona the Pest books, and the In Grandma's Attic books. Right now she's reading Ella Enchanted.  When we're in the van she likes to either listen to music or to Jonathan Park stories on CD. The next series she'd like to get are the Brinkman Adventures. She

loves to play on the iPad, and she's not crazy about taking a bath or shower. I make her take two a week, but her hair would look nicer if she washed it more frequently. I'm sure at some point she'll start caring more about this than she does now. For the second time in her life she gave herself a haircut. It was worse this time because she doesn't have any bangs, but we have found a way to hide her "bald spot." When she wants to earn some extra money she does a load of laundry for me for $1.

She loves to eat eggs - fried or scrambled. She would love to have some every single day. She usually has oatmeal or cereal for breakfast. Her favorite cereals are Frosted Flakes, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Raisin Bran Crunch. Her first choice for lunch is a ham and cheese hot pocket. Other times she'll have an egg and toast or yogurt or a hot dog. Her favorite fruits and vegetables are clementines, apples, baby carrots, blueberries, strawberries, plums, pears, grapes, and peaches. Her favorite foods for dinner include pizza, rigatoni and meatballs,

tuna noodle, mozzarella sticks, jello, applesauce, cranberry sauce, and macaroni and cheese. Although she likes sweets, lately she often chooses something salty such as chips or crackers with cheese. Her favorite desserts are brownies, cookies, and either cookies and cream or chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Her favorite drinks are apple juice, chocolate milk, and hot chocolate, but most of the time she drinks water. Her favorite candy bars are Rolos, Peanut Butter Cups, Peanut Butter M&M's, and Hershey's white chocolate Cookies and Cream.

Her favorite show is Friends and Heroes (set in the time of the Roman Empire shortly after Jesus' resurrection). Since we have cable TV right now so we can watch football, she has been watching Elena of Avalor and Sophia the First on Disney Jr. She rarely ever plays the Wii. She prefers to use the iPad when she earns a turn.

As for school, she's in a fourth grade art class at Meadowbrook Christian and a homeschool gym class. She's on target to finish

the fourth grade math textbook and the fifth grade spelling book in May. She can write in cursive, but her default is still to write in manuscript. She's working on Level 2 in both piano and Rosetta Stone Spanish. Over the last four months she and Ian studied flying creatures in science (birds, insects, bats, and pterosaurs) and in Bible we read the four Gospels, I, II, and III John, and the first 10 chapters of Acts. She studied the first 7 chapters of Romans with Tab when she was at her house using BSF lessons designed for children. She enjoyed the video devotionals (Faith Blox) on 1 John that we watched on Right Now Media and is looking forward to his series on Ephesians when we get to that book.

The gifts we gave her this year for Christmas included a Finding Dory mad lib book, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book, the three girls from Despicable Me (plush), three small Lego sets, a fidget spinner, American Girl paper dolls, an adult coloring book, Amelia Bedelia book, Missy Piggle-Wiggle book, peanut butter M&Ms, and a National Park passport. She also got gifts from her brothers today that they had selected at AWANA. Merry Christmas and Happy Half-Birthday, Nadia!

Checking it twice

Well as of today I am declaring myself done with Christmas shopping. Considering Christmas is in four days, it's about time to wrap it up! I have wrapped everything that has arrived. There are two items still en route. Amazon says the one for Nadia will arrive at our house tomorrow. The other gift (for Ian) from eBay was supposed to arrive by today at the latest, but it didn't. We shall see if it makes it here tomorrow or Saturday. If not, he'll just have to wait a bit longer for his last gift from us. Yesterday I placed an order with Shutterfly; I had to stay up much later than I've been staying up lately to finish it. I know the items will not come in time for Christmas. Making things on Shutterfly is either cheap or free for me, which is wonderful, BUT it's very time consuming. I've force myself to take less time, but even if I am as efficient as possible there is still a significant time investment. Time has been very precious to me the past four months, and so I have been behind on using my Shutterfly coupon codes, but I am determined to use them before the end of the month as I

still have one more free shipping code, and I'm not going to waste it because in a typical year those are only issued in November.

Yesterday I baked more cookies so we could have enough to make cookie trays to give to the kids AWANA leaders last night and to their kids' choir directors tomorrow night. In addition to homeschooling and housework, I didn't get anything done for the spring semester yesterday. Earlier in the week I had worked on one syllabus. So today I was determined to work on the other syllabus because I have a feeling this month I have off is going to just fly by. I am bound and determined to be prepared before the semester starts. I figure if I work on my lesson plans for the math class a little every day, I should be able to complete that task plus the conference proposals by January 21. I won't be doing any homeschooling next week aside from a field trip to Mount Vernon so that should give me a little more time to work on the spring semester. Right now there is *nothing* on our calendar for December 23 or 26. I've decided to take the kids to

see a movie on Saturday because I have 2 free tickets, 2 free large popcorns, 2 free large drinks, plus $10 off the remaining two tickets. Paul won't be joining us in Maryland, but he's taking off work December 25 and 26 so I should be able to get a lot of work done on December 26 while he plays with the kids.

At the Turkey Hill Experience we learned that although French Vanilla had been the most popular flavor for many years (in terms of sales), Butter Pecan has been the top seller the last few years, which happens to be Paul's favorite flavor. They had different Christmas trees decorated in a theme related to a particular flavor of ice cream such as a birthday themed tree with Party Cake ice cream. I took Ian's picture beside the tree that featured his favorite type of ice cream - Touchdown Sundae! In one area of the museum you could eat a small sample of a variety of types of ice cream. My least favorite was Pumpkin Pie. Most of that was tossed. My most favorite of the ones they had that day was Strawberry Cheesecake. Yum!

I haven't received an official job offer or a contract yet, but I did receive my list of student teachers for the spring semester. I had a few of them as students this semester. They are in 5 different school districts. Five are in the district where we go to church (15 minutes from our house). Six are close to where we lived in 2004-08 (about 45 minutes away). Two are in a district 30 minutes from our house, and I have one each in two other districts. One is about 40 minutes from our house and the other is closer to one hour away. Two of my student teachers teach in the same building where our neighbor teaches, and I actually know one of the cooperating teachers I will be working with in that school because she was the director of the summer musical in past years (not this year) at the Alliance Church. Seven of my student teachers are Early Childhood majors (PK-4), two are middle level (4-8), one is Spanish (K-12), and five are secondary Ed (7-12). Three of them are graduate students, and the other twelve are undergrads. I haven't supervised a student teacher since 2005. I'm looking forward to it!

Day in Lancaster County

In 2011 we started a tradition of going to see one show at Sight and Sound each year. Our first time was to see Jonah in June 2011 to celebrate Nadia's third birthday. They actually did Jonah again this year. We didn't go. Had I known I was going back to work, we would have gone. The next year they do Jonah again, I am planning on getting tickets for all of us to see it. Yesterday we saw the Miracle of Christmas. It was the seventh different show Nadia and Ian have seen there. Next spring we are planning to see their new show titled "Jesus." The previous six shows were all from the Old Testament (Jonah, Samson, Moses, Joseph, Noah, and Daniel). Since we had tickets for the 3:00 show I thought we should do something else down in that area before the show. We decided to go to Turkey Hill Experience where we learned about how ice tea and ice cream are made. We were able to sample different kinds of lemonade, iced tea, and ice cream, and we each made our own pint of ice cream. Oliver went with a cotton candy flavored ice cream that had gummy worms and other things in it. Nadia and I both made an apple pie flavored ice cream but we mixed in different ingredients.

Nadia's favorite part of the museum was the part where you could make your own commercial. She made MANY commercials. Ian named his ice cream "Nutsaroo" after the name of a squirrel in a book series we've been reading lately. Ian's favorite part of the museum was a video arcade game where you were trying to shoot the bad bacteria. After the show at Sight and Sound we had dinner at Applebee's to celebrate Pop Pop's 75th birthday (his actual birthday is today) and Ian's 8th birthday last week. Kids eat for free there on Tuesday nights, and because we were celebrating Pop Pop's birthday he was able to select one dessert from the menu for free, and because they forgot Nadia's meal at first, they also let her select a dessert for free.

From the time we left our house until we got back home a little more than 12 hours had passed. We had a wonderful day celebrating Christmas and Pop Pop's 75th birthday! I get both the Miracle of Christmas show and the Turkey Hill Experience two thumbs up!

Thankful Tuesday

1. I'm very thankful that God gave me a boy eight years ago. Ian Alexander is such a blessing in our lives!

2. The kids have enjoyed their eight weeks of gymnastics. Last night was the last night of the session. We're taking a break due to basketball. 

3. The kids enjoyed the Christmas around the world program at the Children's Museum last Wednesday morning. 

4. The kids had their first basketball practices last week. I'm thankful for the coaches and other volunteers who make it possible! This is Nadia's first time playing full court basketball. She already knew most of the girls on her team.

5. The boys and I enjoyed the Christmas worship service on Friday night (although Oliver fell asleep about half-way through the service).

6. The kids got a good report at the doctor's office on Friday. I'm thankful we don't visit the doctor very often.

7. We enjoyed the candy cane making demonstration at Purity Candy on Saturday.

8. On Saturday we had dinner at Dave and Marla's house (90 minutes away from our house). Dave works in the office at the family business. They are very hospitable and generous people!

9. The kids' choir sang on Sunday morning. I'm glad they have an opportunity to be in a choir. Paul's parents spent several hours with us that day and gave Ian his birthday present. The kids always love spending time with Grandma and Pop Pop!

10. The semester is DONE! Yesterday I got some work done for the spring semester, but I didn't feel like I had to work at a frantic pace, which was a big relief. 

11. Ian has really taken off recently with his skills at sight reading music when playing the piano. Wow! I was wishing with all my heart I could share this with my mom. I wonder if she knows things like that in heaven or not?

12. We are headed to the Turkey Hill Experience today, which is something I've wanted to take the kids to for a few years but didn't because of the cost. It's nice to be able to afford splurges like this. We'll be learning about ice cream and iced tea are made and tasting samples along the way. Then we're headed to Sight & Sound for their Miracle of Christmas show. For several years we've gone to one show a year. We didn't go to Jonah (their main show this year) so we're doing their Christmas one for the first time. That is a much bigger splurge than the Turkey Hill experience, but it's a lot cheaper than buying tickets to see a Broadway show in NYC. We're looking forward to this "field trip" that will also include Daddy, Grandma, and Pop Pop!

Cut a rug

The last several years the kids have gone to a free breakfast with Santa event. Most of the time it was one given by our local fire department. Last year we went to one at a nursing home; we couldn't go to that one this year because it was the held the morning we were standing in line in Baltimore. This weekend was the time that the fire company usually held their breakfast, but it seems to me they didn't have one this year. Nadia has reached the age where she thinks she's outgrown many things she used to enjoy such as many Disney princess movies. I think visiting Santa is in the same category, but considering Oliver is only five-years-old I at least wanted to visit the one they always have outside the grocery store in our town. Originally I thought that Saturday we would go to the breakfast with Santa with the fire department, a Christmas party at the library, and candy cane making demonstration. The first two were deleted from our calendar. but we did make it to the candy cane demo at Purity Candy (about five minutes from our house). Last year was the first year we attended one of those.

They do three demonstrations each Saturday three weeks in a row in December. They show the whole process from start to finish of making a batch of candy canes. At the end each child (and adult if they are interested) can form a candy cane into whatever shape they want, and they get to keep (and eat) that candy cane. I was amazed to learn that the couple standing next to me had driven ten hours (they live in Michigan) to attend the demonstration! I thought it was interesting, but I never would drive anywhere near ten hours for a 30 minute demonstration!

The kids' choir sang in church this morning. Oliver brought a lot of laughter in the first service. So many people were commenting to me saying things like "Oliver sure knows how to cut a rug" and such. To be honest I was feeling embarrassed when it was happening, but I'm glad others enjoyed it. Ian and Nadia never have done anything like that. Each child is certainly unique! I asked him to not do that in the second service, and he didn't. I brought the video camera, but I

hadn't charged the battery so I couldn't use it. I used Paul's phone in the first service, and my phone in the second service. The video camera's videos are much higher quality than the phone's, but something is better than nothing. I brought my camera to church so that I could take photos of the kids in the sleigh in the foyer, but I forgot about that plan and sent my camera home with Paul when he left after the first service. I have been making mistakes left and right lately. So I took photos at home in front of the Christmas tree instead. Paul's parents came to the second service and then came home and spent several hours at our house. They gave Ian his birthday present - Legos! Usually he receives multiple Lego sets at his birthday and at Christmas, but this was the only set he got for his birthday this year. It's a big one (900+ pieces). We are finally done with celebrating Ian's 8th birthday. Pop Pop will be turning 76 on Wednesday!