The NEW YEAR!!!!

Okay, so we made it through the holidays! YAY!!! Now, we just need to make it through WINTER. For those of you who aren't familiar with weather-related things...it's COLD up here. The wind is crazy and puts Kirksville wind to shame - hard to believe, I know! My running outside had been very non-existant with -20 windchills! Anyway, things are going fine up here in the tundra. My job has become so much more enjoyable as I become more comforable with what I'm supposed to be doing. Jim's job has reminded us of when he first started to do appraisals....BUSY. He's having to stay some evenings and he's worked almost every weekend. Fortunately, he can take Julianne to the office with him if I can't be home. She just packs up a bunch of art stuff and he doesn't even know she's there. I think she likes going because he has all kinds of office supplies she can use - plain paper, the stapler, hole-punches, etc.

Julianne loves kindergarten, but told us yesterday that she really likes the weekends, too. She really takes after her daddy in NOT being a morning person. I am just the opposite. Soccor ended and she is now playing on a basketball team of first graders and kindergarteners. She absolutely loves it. I uploaded some videos of her game this morning. It was their first one. One of the videos is of her making a basket during a little practice time just before the game. The other is of her actually making a basket during the game. She made a total of 2 baskets during the game, the second one -however- I wasn't taping at the time. :(

I leave for Florida in a few days for my Goofy Challenge. I'll only be down there 3 days and I'm coming right back the night of the marathon. I'll be hurting, I know. But I didn't want to have to stay an extra night if I didn't have to.

Jim and I will go to Nashville for a few days at the end of January. I will be attending the SCCM conference and he will come with me for the first few days of it. He will leave, however, on Sunday and I will be staying until Wednesday. It's a critical care conference thingy. I'm pretty excited about it. After that, I will be going BACK to Florida - to Fort Lauderdale this time - to help teach a critical care ultrasound course. I'm completely thrilled to be doing this and can't wait!

We don't make it back to Missouri much at all. Jim spent the weekend down there a few weeks ago during Thanksgiving. Each trip planned seems to be ruined by freezing rain. I haven't even gone to Hannibal for Christmas! Supposed to freeze rain today again. We'll see about tomorrow.

Well, that's about all I can think to update everyone on. Just living life up here. We've settled in a lot more in the last couple of months. Most of all this many of you have already read off my facebook page. Have a good day everyone!

Decorating for Christmas....Worth it???

So, anyone knowing me well enough to read this blog knows that I am a very practical person. Given that, each year I wonder if it's actually worth it to put up all the decorations for Christmas when it's just so much work to take them down and store them in a few weeks. Seriously, you have to set aside an entire afternoon just to UNdecorate! However, I decided to go all-out this year. Figured it may help me actually feel at home in my new home (isn't working yet). Plus, Julianne is at the age where she gets so excited about all this.....although I know she will make herself scarce when it comes time to take it all down.

Anyway. Yesterday's tally included TWO trips to Hobby Lobby, one trip to each Walmart and Target, and trips to a couple other stores because shoes were on sale. I ended up buying a second tree for our family room. It's full-size: 7.5 feet tall. Our other tree we've used is small because our old house is small. I put it up too, though. I went with RED on the big tree. If your Christmas tree could tell something of your personality, I wonder what this one says. Seriously, it's entirely RED.

I also decorated the banister with garland and then decorated the garland. I couldn't figure out how to hang the garland without putting holes in the wood on both the banisters and fireplace - so, I did the usual......I googled it. Once again, the love of my life (google) came through for me. Surprisingly, I already had what it suggested. I used the 3M strips that you can use to hang light pictures on the walls. It worked perfectly. I did have to get more when we ran back to the store though.

I bought new Christmas placemats and a Holiday bowl to put in the center of the table with RED ornaments in it.

So, Julianne and I started our adventure about 11am on Black Friday. The stores really weren't too bad. Target was a little crowded. Hobby Lobby wasn't bad at all. We didn't go to Walmart until the evening, and it was almost empty! It took us until almost 10 pm to get it all done, including cleaning up our mess.

So, is it worth it to do all this decorating for Christmas? Honestly, I don't know. I guess if you truly ENJOY the act of decorating, then sure. I'm not sure I actually enjoy it. I don't mind it. Maybe now that I have a good base of decorations to work with, I will be more inclined to get them out next year....adding a few decorations each year until my Holiday Ensemble is complete. I would like to find a wooden train set to go around the tree.

When I was little, my mom decorated for Christmas like nobody's business. We had a dozen old fake trees that she would take the branches off of and use them for garland to decorate table tops, chandeliers, etc. We strung popcorn every year and made paper chains. 90% of our ornaments were homemade. It was amazing. Our tree was always real. Anyway....

So...here are some pics of our hard work. I will dress the little one up one day soon and take her picture with the tree. We may include Fred, the guinea pig, in photos this year. :)

Big Day Around Here!!

Julianne lost her first tooth today. I am so thankful I was here for it! I was on the treadmill when I hear her yell "daddy, my tooth came out"...I about fell off. Sure enough - her tooth was gone. It's been loose for a few days. Evidently, she was chewing on her shirt collar and it must have caught on the loose tooth and pulled it out. She didn't even know it happened until she went to feel her loose tooth and it wasn't there. Then she noticed the blood and looked for the tooth. Sure enough - found it on the chair.

Not sure if this is a big deal, but Jim and I felt like it was. So glad it wasn't one of those traumatic tooth pullings - like when it's hanging by a string and the kid won't let you pull it out. So, she assumes the tooth fairy will be visiting later tonight. She drew a picture of the tooth fairy a few days ago and hung it on her bed. I read a news article not too long ago that teeth are a big business nowadays for kids...getting $5.00 and up! Do they not make quarters any more?

So, you can see the pictures below. Will also post some on my facebook page. I had to turn some to black and white because the blood was all over her face and it looked pretty bad.

I don't know whether to be extremely excited or to cry....She's getting so big!

Julianne and Lainee

I took Julianne and Lainee to the Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, MO last weekend. These photos are on my facebook page, but I thought I would put them here too. I'm not sure they were very impressed with the cave - but they were certainly impressed by the number of bats we saw flying around in there. The tour takes about 45 minutes or so. We spent the night at Aunt Denise's house (Aunt Nee-Nee, or Grandma - which ever). There, the bonfire got rained out, so smores were done in the microwave. The picture of the two of them in the tub is the next morning after the smores - and I am ashamed to say....that really is slept-on-smore on their faces. They crashed the night before while watching Hannah Montana and there was no way I was going to wake them up to go wash up. Anyway. Lainee is about 14 days hounger than Julianne I think. Both started kindergarten several weeks ago, and both are sick of talking about "how school is going".

Jumping Rope!!

Picking up Julianne from sitters yesterday. She's been working on her jump-roping for a week now. Hopefully the video will play!!

Our First IOWA Football Game!!!

Today we ventured into the land of the completely unknown....We became Iowa Hawkeye fans!!! We decided a couple of days ago to try to score tickets and had no problem. Then, I (Linda) decided we can't do anything if we don't do it right - so we went and got our Hawkeye apparel. Each of us picked out a shirt and, of course, Julianne got pom-poms, a necklace, and some tatoos. A friend offered to let us park at his place - which is only a couple blocks from the stadium.

So - Our first IOWA football game was a blast! Our seats were good and we were surrounded by people who weren't total knuckleheads. Julianne got to stand and cheer whenever she wanted without anyone becomming annoyed.

Not sure if we will be attending any more of them - as Jim would rather shoot things on the weekends - but I would love to go to another one. Wondering if the tailgating thing may be something to try next time....not sure.