Christmas 2012

This Christmas was a "stay at home" Christmas and I'm afraid I took it way too much to heart.  I don't think I left the house with the exceptions of two outings.  Really.  I read and puttered around the house and read some more.  I managed to finish two books and get well into the third and if all goes as planned tonight, I may just make it all the way through book three and start into book FOUR!
I know, I know... get out of the house.  Nope.. thanks, enjoying my time at home sleeping in and being a total bum!!

Oh, and we discovered, or should I say, rediscovered puzzles.  Butch was even caught in the act.  I think I'm the only one who didn't sit down and really work on the puzzle :)

Traditions carry on and each child gets to open ONE present on Christmas Eve.  Angela got a neat air brush set from Grandma - she has had such fun with this!!

 Liz chose to open one from her friend (yes, just friend; and no, not gay!) Alec

The tree after Santa came to visit

 Angie was the first up... tried out her bike - varrroooom!!!

 Liz loved the cute light up bag that grandma gave each of them!

 Grandma got a nice new back scratcher... ah, nothing beats a good back scratch!!

 The last few pics of Elizabet were of her trying to get her new ipod out of the box - it was taped into a shoe box with little jingle bells inside... then she finally got it untaped off the bottom to discover it was GREEN!!

 Black Friday shopping WITH kids puts a damper on giving for Christmas, so Grandma wrapped the headphone box - to the headphones Angie has been using since she got them "early for Christmas" - hahaha - love it!

 It's a Dr. Who Christmas at our house!

 Playing push the dummy with Grandpa.  My camera was horrible against the light - I hope someone shares their pictures with me so I can get a good one going.  I'll try to photoshop these two - once I get photo shop loaded back on this computer!

 How we REALLY spent our vacation :)

 Pretty full moon right after Christmas!

Bye Bye Blackbird

Butch is unfamiliar with blackbird ribbons through the sky.  Apparently northern Florida coastal areas never witness them

To be honest I don't think we've been in their flight pattern really well until this year.  and that's saying a lot as we've been here ELEVEN years now.
can you believe it?  Two more and this will be the LONGEST I have lived in one spot since 15. 
Wow there's a weird statement. 4 years old and 13 year is my longevity for a single location. 
Yep, built for a nomadic life.

Elizabeth's Christmas Concert

Yes that is her with her hair across her face. Glad I didn't remember the good camera! Wouldn't have done any good. Sigh.


We did get a good photo with Santa, however.


And this goes to show you're NEVER too old for Santa :)

Christmas!

The house is all lit up!





Burr. Georgia version if icicles...ha!!

OMG, I'm dead....

Donna Marie Autrey

Obituary WINSTON-SALEM — Mrs. Donna Marie Robbins Autrey, 57, passed away Wednesday, June 27, 2007. A graveside service will be conducted 2 p.m. Sunday, July 1, at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens by Brother Paul Autry. She was born June 6, 1950, in Forsyth Co., to the late Herman Louis and Patsy Smith Robbins. Donna was a very loving wife, mother, sister, grandmother, great-grandmother, and aunt. She loved singing, riding motorcycles, and horses. But most of all she loved her family dearly. OK, so it's not me, but I was doing a search and wondering just what people would find under my name - shocking to see I had an obituary to the "T" on my maiden name!! Great news, I'm still alive - bad news, a lot of folks I wouldn't have suspected to be dead at our age are dead.  Sad, I found out Tim Foster (from Missouri in the late 80s) has passed away - 10 days after his 47th birthday... that's just not right.

debate, debate, debate....

YOUR VACATION:            India's Golden Triangle $1,569.00 per person, twin occupancy

DEPARTURE DATE:           21-Jan-2013          

VACATION START DATE:               22-Jan-2013          

ROOM TYPES:  ROOM 1 - SINGLE ROOM RATE

1 ADULT  $1,569.00 + $820.00 = $2,389.00             

                               

YOUR SELECTED HOTELS                               

Delhi: Park Plaza New Delhi Hari Nagar

Agra: Hotel Clarks Shiraz

Jaipur: Clarks Amer

Delhi: Park Plaza New Delhi Hari Nagar   (Included)

               

DEPARTURE DATE:           21-Jan-2013

RETURN DATE:  30-Jan-2013

DEPARTING FROM:         Atlanta, GA

AIR TAXES/FEES:  $1,443.00

 

YOUR PACKAGE PRICE:  $4,051.00

 

So….the only depressing thing (besides the actual price) is the fact that there is an eight HUNDRED single surcharge for this trip…yes, HUNDRED… almost a thousand dollars just because I will go solo.  Really – I need someone to go with me…

 

                                                               

 

 

Christmas is starting to take shape

I found a tree finally!! I got a nice one at Hobby Lobby - love that store...

 Fluff girls, FLUFF!!!

 almost there!!!

TA DA - full height up and ready.... 

 Lights and no stars...

 Angela she SO wanted to put on the star....

 PRETTY with the LARGE red balls from Italy that I picked up on our last trip

 Not sure why this one looks so yellow, but it's a pretty tree!

Liz looking through the "delicate" box of ornaments.

Childhood woe's

OK, I said this would be my journal of such. I won't go into detail,
but this week is a sad week for me. This week we have found that Angela
is not handling life and stresses well. There have been times we've
laughed about her antics and pulled our hair out. Case in point the
fear to the point of phobia over spiders and bugs of all sorts last
summer and the summer prior had us wondering if we really needed to seek
outside help to get her past it. It was BAD. Really bad. Grandma even
had her house sprayed in anticipation of Angela coming to see her last
summer. It's gotten better, however there are still out bursts of
emotions. We write those off as hormones and being 13. Which, I'm sure
most of this is, however there is a definite lack of coping
mechanisms.... so it's time. We're going to see if outside intervention
will help in this matter and help her get some coping mechanisms for
stress and life in general. Help her know that the parents are NOT nuts
when we say that a lot of her stresses with school are self-inflicted
and procrastination is the major cause in all this. Maybe if she hears
it from someone outside of the parents it will sink in? Hard to know.

Scholarship Inteviews for Georgia Southern

Some brainiac decided to do the scholarship interviews the weekend of the big rivalry game.  sigh.  This means less hotels available, less choice and let me tell you, the choice we made was HORRIBLE.  La Qunita in Statesboro is horrible!  Oh, well, it was a room to sleep in. 

 

Lizzie getting ready for the evenings banquet where she was seated with someone from the interview panel (just not HER panel, it would appear the next day

 

 All ready to head on out to the banquet

 We had a nice "mingling" session prior to the event and Elizabeth was strong armed by her mom to get a picture with the president of the school :)  This should be in our local paper in the future, just not sure when.  They will also send a copy of it to our house, so I'll share it when it comes in.

We had a nice dinner and and evening of listening to speakers regarding the school and everyones LOVE of it.  It's a nice place and they really are courting these young people.  Some schools just send money, these folks have individuals who are peer mentors - they were calling Liz to tell her when and what paperwork to submit for scholarships, etc..  There is a good side to the small schools of Georgia. Then again, with her SAT scores, she was one of 160 other kids invited at this level.

Dinner was: salad wedge, then prime rib with steamed vegetables and a nice chocolate covered red velvet mini-bunt cake for dessert.  I did have to chuckle, drinks were automatically sweet tea.  Yes, you know you're in the south when your drink is automatic and automatically sweet tea :)

So, back to the hotel, sleep for a few hours, then back again to the event at 7:45 to make her 8:30 interview time.

We were able to wander around and gather information on the different majors in the school.  So, now we wait... they said she would hear something before Christmas.  She was a little bummed as she only had ONE interview and one of her classmates from her school (only three of them that she knew of/saw while there) had three interviews.  I don't know how that works, nor what that means for her, however, we just have to wait and see what happens. 

In the meantime, she has received two scholarships from SUU - one is a 10,500/year renewable academic scholarship and the 2nd came in the day we went to Statesboro - it was the alumni scholarship giving her instate tuition rates - also renewable for all four years.

I'm sure the debates will rage for a while :)