weezer in a pear tree

Weezer thinks this tree is his personal playground. It took Grant and me, one at each end, to pull him out. The next morning, the tree was on the ground with ornaments scattered about.

We ventured out to Tanglewood Friday night to see the lights. After losing my mom's driver's side window (fell down into the d00r) and switching cars, we piled in the Mercedes to sit in a line.

I stuck my head out of the sunroof to take pictures as we drove. They had a lot of moving displays that reminded me of animated .gifs.

The pets enjoyed Christmas too.

Solomon outside

My mom made felt stockings for all of our 8 cats and 2 dogs.


The dogs got walked quite a bit while we were home. We left with 2 dogs and came back with 3, after we added a fat black lab halfway around.

The search for the great pickle - a tradition adopted from the Andersons, I think. The first person to find the pickle gets a special present.

Maggie & Oreo were the first to open their presents, two ham bones that the cats tried to unwrap for them. We actually talked my parents into letting us open presents a couple of days early, which gave us time to play with them!!!

Ryan got a Toronto Raptors jersey that he bought and returned last summer, then tried to buy this break again, but was gone! Wonder why???

Grant thought he was getting another guitar for his PS2, but was tricked!

It was really a wool dress coat.

Ryan gave me the game Settlers of Catan. I've learned to love it from playing only 3 times with Nikie and Chadd at Highland.

You can tell when there's been down time if the leftover cities, settlements, and roads become statues.

The goal of the game is to get 10 points by buying, trading, and building on the island of Catan. If you want to know more, you'll have to play it with me! (Ryan's already sick of it.)

In other news, Carson Reid Watkins was born on Sunday, Dec. 23 (his due date). He and Nikie should be at home by now for his first Christmas!

Ryan and I are headed to Zephyrhills, FL to spend a few days with his family in the sun and warmth. Grant is leaving on a plane bound for Chicago tomorrow morning, where he'll have highs in the 20s!

Hope you all had a merry Christmas!

fa la la la la . . . la la la la

As always on an academy campus, it was a busy weekend. Luckily, my involvement with the goings on was limited to church and I was there voluntarily. Anita Watkins and the people who help her decorate the church always do a great job. The only problem was that the tree limited stage space.

Our church partners with the McKendree Methodist Church in Portland to perform a Christmas Cantata every year. This year, our choir sang with the group too.

I used my spy lens to figure out what hymn we were supposed to be singing. The focal length was a little too short to get Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in focus like I wanted to.

While I wandered around taking pictures, Ryan waited for me to come back . . . He took several videos and some pictures too. I really wished that I had a star filter to use with all of these Christmas lights up.

Right before Ryan left tonight, we took some pictures by my tree. The tree still smells good when you walk in the door. It hasn't been sucking up very much water. I'm worried I didn't cut enough of the trunk off . . . Oh well, I'm just going to throw it in the woods when I get back from break anyway!

Since the last post, I put the Red Sox ornament on that Jaclyn got me, as well as the three ornaments from Camp AuSable last Christmas. Those of you with a keen eye may notice one more addition since last time.









I got a tree skirt! A bird tree skirt. We were at the mall today and American Greetings had a section of stuff that was 50% off, which made the price of this lovely felt tree skirt only $15! A lot better price than the ones I saw at Hobby Lobby!

beep

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What you lack in height and communication skills, you make up for in industriousness, technical know-how and being there when others need you most.

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Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Quiz

new family member

My cousin Jason's little girl was born Friday. They live in Prague, so it's nice to get pictures and video clips Jason has posted online. Zoe is definitely a cute one! I think we'll keep her!

elf yourself!

Thanks Karen for sending this to me. I had way too much fun making this. I just sent it to the HA Staff distribution list. We'll see if I still have a job tomorrow!

Follow http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1272763069 for a laugh.
(FOR SOME REASON, IT'S NOT LETTING ME CREATE A LINK, SO YOU'LL HAVE TO COPY IT INTO YOUR BROWSER ADDRESS BAR).
Make sure you have the sound on!

If you're curious, here's the one Karen & Bill sent: http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1271229021

sophomoric

One of my sophomore sponsorly duties was to "supervise" the class party at one of the girl's relatives' house nearby. We loaded up almost the whole class and drove them over.



Most of the afternoon was spent watching TV. We had the football game on in two locations, and the Wii upstairs.





TV watching was supplemented with foosball, pillow fights, and pool. You can see here they were excited when the Titans were doing well. Too bad they lost in the end.



The boys stole the chair from McKenzie and Shana, who then tried to dump them out of it. This was a BAD idea. Right about the time I snapped this picture, the front left leg broke off the chair. Granted it was only plastic, but still, we felt bad breaking their furniture.


Their house sits on top of a hill, just down the ridge from Highland. They have 3 cows and I counted 1 dog and 4 cats. I didn't think the school's mini bus would make it up the hill.



Tyler gave Shana a good ride on the tire swing.

mmm . . . marshmallowy goodness

I forgot to put this picture on my last blog. It's the Willow Tree nativity set the girls got me last year. I love it! It's sitting on top of my entertainment center.

It's that time of year again . . . . . Faculty Family Vespers! This year I have 6 girls who are all seniors. Clockwise from the top left are April, Gianna, Natalie, Candace, Andie, and Erika. I know you will remember and appreciate the back of their heads.

After eating lots of pizza, veggies, chips, and apple crisp, we painted ornaments again this year. I found some cute ones at Hobby Lobby that were unfinished. They were more fun to paint than the plain shapes we had last year. Ornament painting evolved into face painting.

Gianna meticulously paints her stocking ornament

Natalie's picture frame ornament

Candace the reindeer contemplates the meaning of Christmas as she sits by the tree.

I spiced things up by getting out my mini-marshmallow gun. I managed to shoot one straight into Candace's mouth! They all want one now. That's what I should have made them for Christmas . . .

Yes, this is exactly what it looks like. Why didn't I think of it sooner?

Group shot

And with ornaments!
(L to R: Erika, Gianna, Andie, Natalie, Candace, April)

if a tree falls in the living room . . .

It's been pretty hectic at work lately, but we still made time during lunch last Friday to decorate the office. I've been conducting snowflake making seminars for anyone who will listen, so our hanging collection is a conglomeration of a few people's work.

I went on a Christmas tree mission Monday night. I wanted to have my tree up for Faculty Family Vespers tomorrow and I knew that would be the only time to get it done. We're going to make ornaments again. I'll take pictures and put them up over the weekend. I'm on supervision this weekend and won't have much free time, but we'll see how it goes. I'm hoping on doing some scrapbooking with the new paper I got tonight at Hobby Lobby. (PS - Mom, I decided I need a tree skirt . . . if you want a Christmas present idea for me. I liked a felt one at Hobby Lobby that had cardinals on it.)