Everybody Wants to Par-Tay

Ho Ho Ho! It's Christmas. It's time to party! Party hardy! La la la!

Saturday morning . . . .  
Sardine Canyon . . . . very Scary!!! Took chains. Almost used them.
Good little Honda. I think I can. I think I can.

Party . . .
Good food. Dutch oven stew in a bread bowl. Aunt Susan's Sugar Cookies. Fun white elephant game. Christian and Parker speak of elves in their Christmas tree who come out at night and eat candy canes. Very funny. Wrapped up can of tuna fish in napkin. Secret. 

Board games? Bingo cards handwritten and laminated (and numbered on the back)? Told we either had gold coins or lumps of coal? People with gold coins rewarded with extra candy bars?

Saturday afternoon . . .
Sardine Canyon . . . . very Scary!!! Took chains. Almost used them.
Good little Honda. I think I can. I think I can.
Bad accidents in canyon. Lots of ambulences. Freeway closed. Loooong trip home.

Party . . .
Good food. Italian food. Biscuits and gravy. Sugar cookies. Ice cream sundies. Gift exchange. Singing songs.

Crazy children. A little loud. A little out of control. Johnny ate ice cream like the little piggies. Geneil frosted R-rated cookies. Geneil yelled, "this music is GAY." Not sure what that meant. Puppies in the oven. Pregnant women everywhere. Crowded. Grandparents don't feel well.  Forgot to bring in the camera.

All in all . . . a great holiday weekend! I really like them!  Family is good no matter how odd!!
(no sarcasm intended, I do like these crazy holly-days.)

Service Project

Tonight I squeezed into my Wednesday schedule, a trip to the Rocky Mountain Care Center. The care center is in our stake. Each ward takes turns doing FHE, sacrament meetings, and HFPE for a month. The last time I did the FHE, these two old ladies got in a fight because I told them they should sing along and one of the ladies wasn't. It was scary.

Tonight was the "primary's" night for FHE at the care center. The lady who was going to actually take primary children came down with the flu, so she asked me to go. I said sure. The FHE consisted of me saying the opening prayer and playing the piano for about 20-25 minutes. I took my Reader's Digest Christmas book and just turned the pages.

Only one lady screamed. Some sang along.

After it was over, Brother Smith (the only other non-care center person there) said the closing prayer and then told me I needed to shake hands with all of the people there and tell them Merry Christmas. I did. They told me I did a "bee-u-tiful job" and that the music was "very relaxing."

It's always a good experience to serve others. I'm just glad I didn't cause a fight this time.


Finals update:
3 Down, 3 to go! 2 tomorrow and and internet one due Friday.


Other updates:
**Did you see this . . . . I'm going to be an aunt again! Yippy!! I just wish she hadn't put up pictures of the pee sticks.

** Tomorrow we are going to the Body Worlds Exhibit. I'm a little worried.

** Saturday will be James' first experience with the Huber Family Progressive Party. In the 3 Christmases I have known him, he hasn't made it to one yet. He's worried. I told him not to be.

Finals Week!!! AHHHHHHH!!!

It's finals week at the U. James has 2 down and 3 to go, plus an internet one due Friday! Wish him luck! James, it will all be finished soon and your first semester of nursing school will be over and done. Hip Hip Hooray.

Also this week and last, I've been wrapping gifts at Grandma's house. She has lots of gifts. It is really fun! I think we just about finished tonight except for a few odds and ends.

Christmas is in 10 days. I still need to get a couple of gifts and I am waiting for two more packages to come in the mail. I hope they get here.

I don't have much else to blog about.

* * *

Later on . . .

It's about 11:00 p.m. now. I wrote this post earlier while sitting downstairs. James was upstairs studying. I decided it was time for me to go to bed, so I went upstairs to see how the studying was going . . .

Apparently it was going juszzzzzzzzzt finezzzzzzzzzzz!

Favorite Christmas Songs

My sister posted some of her favorite Christmas songs. She picked some good ones, but I decided to add to the list.





This isn't necessarily the best version, but Mel Torme did write the song and gets a little help here from Dorothy and toto.



This is THE best version of this particular song.



And my favorite Christmas song about bacon . . .

Army Weekend

James is in the Utah National Guard. Once a month he has an army weekend. He's tried to "shelter" me (in his words) from the guard and the strangeness of it, I guess. Yesterday, though, was a family day with spouse briefings. He said I didn't need to go, but I wanted to go and see what it was all about. We learned about the variety of benefits offered to veterans, family readiness, and financial planning. Here are some tidbits of the briefings.

James is "disabled." I knew that. He has a knee injury that happened in Iraq when he jumped down from a truck. He has filed the proper "medical" paperwork for this injury so that in the event (years down the road) that his knee needs more medical attention, the VA will cover it. He's on a medical "profile" which basically means he doesn't have to do the running portion of the his PT tests because it hurts really bad and makes his knee worse. That we knew. What didn't we know?

There are a variety of services reserved for veterans who are actually disabled in the sense that they cannot work or care for themselves and they need government assisstance. However, there are also a lot of benefits for any veterans who are "disabled" like James is, whether it be from a bullet wound or a messed up ankle from an army softball game. If we fill out a couple more forms, James is eligible to receive 20% off our on our home and vehicle property taxes. He can get a free lifetime national park pass as well as a free lifetime state park pass. He and I both can be buried for free at Camp Williams with a free brass headstone. Cool, huh!

Okay that's all I have to report.