Holiday Fun

Wow...it's been a week of family gatherings, tons of food always goes with that. I enjoyed Christmas day with my sister, Debi, and her family and then the rest of the gang (sister Karen, brother David and their families) gathered yesterday for more Christmas spirit, drinking spirits and pigging out! Twenty-three of us...we had to each in shifts! Here's a few pics from our recent family Holiday get-togethers.


So then I had one last little Christmas gift....I think I finally manged to capture that darned smart little mouse who's been dodging my traps for weeks! Saw the little critter in the laundry room, so I set two traps in there and WHAM, got him within the hour! Now, I'm really hoping that was the last one....my kill count is 6 of the darned things! Hey, I love animals, but these guys would live much longer if they just stayed out of my house!



And finally...I get to ring in the New Year with an ugly cold...ugh! I probably caught it from one of the kids at our Christmas get-togethers. I rarely get sick, so when I do it hits me like a ton of bricks. I managed to drag my sniffly, sneezing, coughing, germy self into work all week and finally gave in on Friday to stay home sick. Hate using a vacation day to lay in bed sick. Resolutions? Nah...I actually set some goals way before January and am workin' on those.

The Ugliest Ornament

Thought I'd tell the story of how our family tradition of having an ornament making party started. My Dad was career Army, and one year the family was transferred back to Virginia from Germany. It was Christmas time, our household goods shipment was late, and that shipment contained all of our holiday decorations! I remember the Army helped us out with some temporary furniture, Army style bunk beds and such. We always had a REAL tree, but now we had nothing to put on the tree. So, my Mom, being a crafty kinda person, had us making decorations. We used beads on straight pins and decorated those satin balls, and we made paper chains for garland. We even used the bottom of egg cartons to make ornaments. Many of these survived through the years, but I think there's only one egg carton ornament left. To most folks, it might be the ugliest ornament on my tree....but to me it holds lots of love and memories, and started a family tradition that is spanning generations.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Activities

Just days before Christmas, and here are some of the family activities going on. We had our annual Family Ornament Making Party! Lots of glue, glitter, beads and craft stuff ... we made a huge mess, and quite a few interesting ornaments. From painted glass balls to reindeer bulbs.

Some of the kids came to my place for an overnight visit. I took them to the "Lights of the South" right here in my little town of Grovetown, GA. Millions of beautiful lights, and we enjoyed a hayride through the forrest of lights. Did I remember my camera for this photo op? Of course not! So, I made up for it the next day, on our way to see the Golden Compass we passed this metal aligator and just had to snap some festive holiday photos!

As you can see, my nephews are really brave!

Christmas Carolers

Wow, it's been ages since I've had Christmas Carolers visit! You just don't see folks going door to door like that now-a-days. Maybe it's the high crime rate, or maybe it's the weather...but it's not commonplace.
A large group of folks, dozens of children, from a local Church were out caroling in my neighborhood tonight. Well, not much crime here, unless you count folks not picking up poop after their dogs as littering? And weather? Well, many of the kids were wearing shorts...it's in the 80's this week!
So, it was really sweet having all those kids singing at my door (as I attempted to keep my dogs from running off with them) and kinda makes it feel more like Christmas.

And Kaci makes Four!

My niece, Nicole, gave birth to her first child today, a little 6 lb girl...Kaci Marie Aul!

My nieces were fruitful this year...four new baby great nieces and nephews.

Oh, and before little Kaci made her entrance to this world...Nikki had taken professional "Maternity" photos. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Well, they are kinda sweet, and the latest craze I suppose. They're bared-belly style photos of the Mommy. Hey, I'm all for family photos, as long as they don't start taking pics of the birth!

Night Soil

When I look up 'poop' the Thesaurus gives me these alternatives: crap, droppings, dung, guano, manure, sewage, stool, waste, cowplop, meadow muffin, cowpies, and night soil. (among others)

So, the most descriptive of the problem is 'night soil'. Ya see, I left for the weekend and set out three of those darned mouse-catchin' sticky traps. I even bought the 'rat' sized ones! I set them in places I thought would snag the critters, but when I came home they were empty. So I left the one in the fireplace but gathered up the other two so my Poodles didn't get trapped (one isn't much bigger than a rat herself).

So I wake up this morning and find there's a bit of "night soil" in my darned flatware drawer! That's the second time I had to haul everything into the dishwasher! This time I put a sticky trap in the drawer instead of my eating utensils!

Suprises

I met my friend, Jacque, when we both lived in Virginia and became friends thru DAR&E, a Doberman Rescue.

She moved to Florida and I landed in Georgia. We'd keep in touch off 'n on via email or phone. It'd been awhile since I'd been in touch with her and I sent her an email while I was off to a class recently in Atlanta, GA. Suprise! She was headed there that same day for a 1 day trip! Amazing that we'd both end up in the same town, at the same time and be in touch enough to know we were both there! So, we managed to meet up before she flew back off to Florida. We hadn't seen each other in over 3 years!

Cachetoberfest

In October, my sister Karen (in the photo above) and I enjoyed a weekend of Geocaching at an event in South Carolina called 'Cachetoberfest'. I used one of those disposable waterproof cameras, so just now getting the photos back.

We even managed to jet ski out to the little islands at Lake Murray to find caches there. I tell ya, there are caches everywhere! You'd be suprised, I bet you pass some on your way to work...or there are some in your neighborhood or favorite park even! Have a GPS? You might wanna enjoy this fun pasttime!

This is me....yup, it was warm enough in late October to get out on the water!

Another one bites the dust...

Yup, this would be mouse #5! I'm gonna keep setting up sticky traps 'till all I get is spiders. Sheesh, how can one little house get so many mice?