Recovering from vacation!

Tuesday Jan 13th 2009
Well, the last week has been trying to get back into the swing of things. Spent last week working on the car, took it to a shop next to us, they said the water pump was leaking, but we should take it to the dealer to fix as it is still under warranty. Luckily Planet Dodge had a free shuttle service, and I talked them into driving me and all the kids back home. Poor guys, had to move all the car seats out, Autumn was crying the entire way back, I gave the guy a tip even though he said they were not supposed to accept them. We survived without a car for a few days, with rides from others and using the bike.



Doug got me a computer for Christmas! He is getting it all set up for me, I told him he could have the new one and I would take the old one, but he said no. It is down in the guest room so when we have visitors they can have a computer to use if they need it. He is linking it to the computer upstairs so we can copy stuff back and forth and use the printer. I need to fix up the area outside the guest room, so I can be on the computer, and let the kids run around outside in the greenbelt. It was really sweet of Doug to do this for me.


Another Christmas present, from mom and dad, I used their gift certificate to go get a bread maker. I have wanted one for quite a while, this will save money, and let us have better bread! We got it yesterday, and made our first loaf of bread. It made the house smell sooo good! When we went to pick up Doug from the park-n-ride, he asked if we had food in the car, I guess all of our cloths smelled like bread. All you do is throw the ingredients in, it mixes, kneeds, warms it (rise) and then bakes. You can make 3 different sizes of loafs, and it has a little cubby to put nuts / raisens / cheese etc. in for fancy breads. We have only made a plain whole wheat bread so far. There are instructions for how to start a sour doe one – I might try that next although it takes 5 days to get the starter going. It will be really nice to have fresh bread every day. Thank you!!!!

We had our book club meeting, our next book is “A Grief Observed” by CS Lewis, reading it I am going to try and get everyone to watch the movie “Shadowlands” first as the book makes more sense when you know all the background behind it, and who “H.” etc. is. Comments on Amazon were:

Amazon.com Review
C.S. Lewis joined the human race when his wife, Joy Gresham, died of cancer. Lewis, the Oxford don whose Christian apologetics make it seem like he's got an answer for everything, experienced crushing doubt for the first time after his wife's tragic death. A Grief Observed contains his epigrammatic reflections on that period: "Your bid--for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity--will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high," Lewis writes. "Nothing will shake a man--or at any rate a man like me--out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself." This is the book that inspired the film Shadowlands, but it is more wrenching, more revelatory, and more real than the movie. It is a beautiful and unflinchingly honest record of how even a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe, and how he can gradually regain his bearings. --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"A very personal, anguished, luminous little book about the meaning of death, marriage, and religion." -- Publishers Weekly

I also started reading “A Purpose Driven Life” chapter a day for 40 days with my mom. It is a generic Christian type book, so I would not agree with all of it, but I am trying to read it for what it does have to offer rather than does not. Mom and I are talking on the phone about it every day which is really fun to talk scripture together, and just chat about our days. Talk to you tonight mom!

Dog Sledding!

Monday Dec 29th
Thank you Sharron! Every year she sends Granny and grampy money so we can all get together and go do something. This year mom set up dog sledding. It was really fun! The weather was great, lots of snow and sunshine. They had a sled hooked up to a snow-mobile, and a sled with dogs. We all took turns mushing (or hikeing) the dogs - Heather, and even James got to lead them!



Little Autumn with her boots on backwards. We were a little worried to leave her on the sled all by herself, no seat belt or anything, but she did good!






They did not have a suit that was Jame's size, so ended up in a grown-up suit - he looked like a little marchmallow! It was really funny to watch him walk.



Grampa Moose ended up flipping the sled shortly after this picture was taken – little Autumn went flying, Heather skidded along for a bit, then rolled off, luckily no one was hurt, and everyone got back on after making snow angels on the side of the trail.



Horse-back riding.
Camille and David took Heather horse back riding on “Dancer” while we were there, which was very special. It was windy out, so we went to the indoor arena. Dancer did really well, following David around like a little puppy dog, until another horse came in. Both horses were trying to show off for one another, and Dancer started “Dancing” a bit, Heather lost one of her red cowboy boots that Grampa Moose had picked out for her, but she held on tight, and did not fall off. Later she got to give Dancer some apples, and brcuh him down, see inside the barn where all of his stuff was kept, and where they can give the horses a shower. Dancer had a funny haircut – what they give them so they don’t get too hot while riding. Heather was really really excited as she really really likes horses.





We spent one day with Kent, got stuff for a pic-nic lunc and went to the park by their house. It was cold, but a really nice park. Kent has this huge train set at their house that James remembered from last summer when we came that is a lot of fun. He also has a little terrier dog that the kids chased around all over the place.






Mom and I went after-Christmas sales shopping, got a bunch more toys (the toy store was going out of business :( ) and a few outfits, it was a fun little outing.
We spent a day with Travis / Angie / Seth. We spent 2 hours at a McDonald’s playland talking politics while the kids played. Then we went to the butterfly pavilion. Everyone (including Autumn) held the big tarantula spider, and we got to see their daily butterfly release. We were going to get some ice-cream afterwards but all the stores were closed as it was new years.







For new years we stayed up watching Gilligan’s Island, woke Heather up at midnight to go out on the front porch and blow our little horns and do our poppers. It has been a wonderful year, and a wonderful trip.

Dorothy and Harold watched the kids so we could take dad out for his birthday dinner. We went to a Mexican place that made fresh guacamole at your table. It was fun but sad at the same time as it was our last night there. The next day mom and I tried to take the kids for a little hike in Golden Gate – James was not in the mood for it though, so James I just walked around a little pond in front of the nature center while Nammy took Heather and Autumn. Then we went and met dad for lunch at Lion’s park in Golden. Dad took Heather and James on a little motorcycle ride before we left.







It is always sad to pack up and say goodbye.

Museum!

We spent one day in denver’s Natural History museum with Nammy and grampa Moose. It was nice to spend a day with dad, he had to work a lot of the time we were there. Mom got tickets to the IMAX show and the planetarium, we ate lunch there, saw the dinosaurs, and all the animal dioramas. Little James talked through the entire dinosaur IMAX show, he loves dinos soooo much. I love the animal dioramas at this museum, they are better than going to a zoo. We went up to the top floor and took a picture of Denver.





After the museum we drove around downtown looking at the Christmas lights. We drove past 16th street, the civic center (we parked and got out of the car thinking, along with a bunch of other people, that the light might come on at 5:30 – but they did not, so we drove around again until they did come on). It was nice to see they still had a nativity display out!

Merry Christmas!

After we got home Heather read us “Twas the Night before Christmas” and we let the kids open up PJ’s and a book. It was pretty hard to get them to go to sleep. Nammy had a little dancing candy cane in their bedroom that played a wiggly song, and all the kids were jumping on the bed with the candy cane. I ended up sleeping with them in their bed so I could turn them around, keep the covers on them, try and pin them down during the night. I think I almost like Christmas Eve more than Christmas.





Christmas Morning
James finally got to open up the present with the race car tied to the package. He as been speculating all week about what is inside this one! HEather got the sewing machine she wanted, little autumn got a vacuume cleaner that she graciously shared with her brother.







After breakfast at Grannies we took a little nap, and then went to Dorothy’s. She had candy and crackers for all the kids to make gingerbread houses, then Christmas dinner, read the scriptures, and open presents. It was nice to get all the Turner’s together at least once while we were there. Doug got to spend some time over at greg and Katie’s at night, but I did not want to impose with the kids, so this was really the only time I got to see them. We were able to see a little bit more of Kent and the girls.








We were able to take the brood over to say hi to Don. Don took doug out to eat and gave him a Jar-Jar Binks mask to carry on the tradition of goofy Christmas presents (like the framed autographed picture of Chris Tucker).



Anjie with her grandson - I can't believe they are now grandparents!!!!