Overjoyed and a bit Overwhelmed

After much excitement and a bit of waiting, my new laptop has arrived! It was also an exciting morning as our Christmas box from my in-laws arrived so Branden and I felt a bit like kids on Christmas morning today! We also got our first Christmas card in the mail. It was from my grandparents which was sweet. I have always been close to them and it's always hard this time of year to be away from them. From the time I was born, every year my family would have Christmas Eve dinner with my grandparents and dad's family, go to the Christmas Eve service at their church, and then spend the night at their house so we could have Christmas morning with them. Since my sis and I were the youngest of their grandkids, they loved getting to continue the fun of having Christmas with little ones. We always had so much fun and Grandma and Grandpa loved to sit back and see Katie and me get all excited over our toys. We had the year when I was 3 that we got our kittens, then a bit later we had the year where we got our baby buggies, and then a little later we had the year that Katie and I confused all the adults by eating the cookies and drinking the milk before they did...so much fun and so many memories. I spent Christmas Eve night at their house every year until I was 22 and at that age, I lived only 2 houses down from them but still walked over to keep up the tradition.

After Christmas morning at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we would then drive over to my mom's side of the family to enjoy more presents, food, and fun with my Granny, Aunt, Uncles, and cousins. We were quite close to both sides of my parent's families, especially since most of them lived in the same area, and I feel very blessed for that. Now we are all grown up and have a slew of little ones taking up the next generation. My grandparents on my dad's side have (if I am counting right) 24 great grand kids and Granny on my mom's side has 6. We are a bit more spread out now but we still have a deep connection filled with lots of great memories.

Fun with some cousins: (from left to right) Me, Bonny (our Irish Setter), Colby, Katie, Jennie

This will be my second Christmas in a row being away from family which is a bit tough since I do miss them a lot and we had such a great tradition of being together at Christmas. Branden and I won't be alone though. We will be spending Christmas with friends and their families so we do feel very blessed this Christmas as we did last Christmas when a friend from the US stayed with us. As some of you may have figured out by now, I love Christmas music and one of my favorite Christmas albums is Third Day's Christmas Offerings. There is one song at the end of the CD though that manages to make me cry EVERY TIME I hear it! It's about adoption but it always makes me think of how my parents must be feeling to not have me or my sis home for Christmas and so I can't help but lose it knowing how much they miss us. Dang! I can't even write about it without losing it!

*tissue break*

Anyway, I do feel very blessed this year, especially now since I'm sitting on my bed, surrounded by blessings bestowed on me by such wonderful people and the mail service didn't dropkick through my front door! It's been a tough year for Branden and me but we have grown so much, made such wonderful new friends, and seen miracle after miracle and blessing after blessing. If you get to be with your family for Christmas this year, give them some extra hugs. There are a lot of us out there who wish we could simply do that on Christmas day.

Oh, and if anyone thinks that I have turned into a Country Music lover, I will chuck a candy cane at you because Third Day isn't actually a country band (they can just get a bit twangy every once in a while!).

My Wild Party Days...

Growing up in a town with a city population under of 5,000, with a majority of that population being senior citizens, there wasn't much to do...there still isn't. A lot of my childhood activities included hunting and fishing with my dad. I was his tom-boy, so I've been bear hunting, deer hunting, grouse hunting, salmon and trout fishing, crabbing, shrimping, and clamming. When I got to high school, my girly friends and I had to come up with other things to do.

There was a 'dance club' but only sad cases (or as we loving called them, "losers") went there, so that was out. Restaurants closed at about 8:30pm, except one that was open till the wee hours of 10pm, so that was out too. The next town over did have a 24 hour cafe open but it was at the docks and lots of creepy, grimy men went there...so not a chance. We liked to try to stay up all night so we needed some form of entertainment, and the only places open for 24 hours were the grocery stores!

On a Friday night, me and the girls would watch a movie and chat till about 2am, when we just couldn't take being in anymore; then it was off to the grocery store, blanket in hand. We would usually buy some cookies or something to snack on, lay the blanket in the magazine isle, and sit, snack and read magazines for a while! It was late, so no customers would come in, and we were welcome company for the bored employees. When one of our stores was under construction, we went there and would talk to the construction guys. We read them their horoscopes and did quizzes; it was actually pretty fun!

There were always other things we could have been doing but none of us were party people, and our parents trusted us and gave us the freedom we craved. In high school, I only went to one party and it was by random chance. A group of us were hanging out when someone got a call from their friend who was at a party, drunk, and needed to be picked up. So we all piled into the car, parked it in a store parking lot down the road, walked to the party and tried to find him in the smelly, nasty mess of drunk teens. When we finally did find him, we heard someone yell, "If you aren't 21 you better run cuz the cops are here!" Since my friends and I hadn't been drinking, except the one we were picking up, we didn't know what to do. I looked at my friend Alicia and with a smile said, "What other chance are WE ever going to get to run from the cops?"

So we took off through a field, someone lost a shoe, I got my leg tangled in a blackberry bush, but we made it to the car and it was one of the most fun things we did! What a rush! I went home that night and woke my mom up to tell her, she laughed and said we were dorks!

Now that you know what kind of a party girl I am, I find this video a bit fitting. A friend of mine here shared it with me and I died laughing! He has other videos too but I still thing this is the best one.

Oh Husband, You Make Me Laugh

One night, Branden was done writing so I had the computer. I was sitting on the bed, checking my email, when I noticed something odd. Branden was standing next to the bed, facing his night stand, and was lunging towards it with his foot. He stomped in front of the night stand and then drew his leg back, and stomped again...and again.

Curiosity getting the best of me (and terror that he could be trying to kill a big bug!), I finally asked, "What in the world are you doing?"

He just looked at me with a quirky smile, pointed to his mug of water, and replied, "I'm playing Jurassic Park!"

I laughed at him, but I can't deny never trying to recreate the T-Rex scene with a glass of water. (Please tell me you have done this too!)

The next funny thing with Branden will be worded into a Tip of the Day:

Brushing your teeth is never an appropriate time to try and blow out a candle!

If he wasn't so high into his education, I might worry...

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! I have blogged!

Since I still have a bit of a waiting until my new laptop comes (eeeeeee! I still can't believe it and am so excited!!!), I spent a decent part of Saturday preparing blog posts for this entire week. Branden worked Saturday so that gave me unlimited internet time, and I even got to read a few friends' blog posts (I miss you all!!). So what has Branden been hogging the computer for in the first place, you ask? He's been writing an essay that's going to become the first chapter of his PhD dissertation. This means he's past the 'read for months' stage and is now into writing mode...for the next 2.5 years! This laptop couldn't come at a more perfect time!

Besides Branden taking the laptop and disconnecting me from the world, he also is a big doodie head and won't let me have a kitty, or a puppy, or a tiger (there's a commercial on TV that says for just 2 euros a month we can adopt a tiger!). Ok, so the landlady is the bigger doodie head because we can't have pets at our house, which I hate to admit makes sense because it's a shared house and people may have allergies, yada yada yada, but I like to blame someone who can hear me and Branden is typically the only one around. He asked me the silly question of where we would even keep a tiger, but I pointed out the obvious: we have a king sized bed! Who wouldn't want to cozy up to a tiger every night? Then he asked how we would feed it, but yet again I was quick to answer. We'd just take it to the dog park! It's not an official dog park. It's just a park nearby that lots of people let their dogs run wild in, so we'd really be helping to enforce the leash laws (if they have them in Ireland). He's still against the tiger thing, so in true Christmas spirit, I'm going to try for something different. 

The funny thing about this song is that my nickname with my fabulous best friend Chrissy is "hippo". It all came about when a very skinny friend of ours complained about her body and we sarcastically stated, "Yeah, you are such a whale!" She found this quite funny and it made her feel better so we all came up with fat animals for nicknames. I became "hippo" and Chrissy became "water buffalo". It really does put things in perspective if I'm complaining about my legs and Chrissy says, "Well you are a hippo you know!" I generally feel much better after that because seriously, have you seen the size of hippo legs?? At least God made me a human and not a hippo, so I shouldn't complain.

Anyhoo, I hope you all have a wonderful Monday! I can't promise I'll get to read your blogs this week or comment back, but thanks to Joshua and the wonderful person who covered the shipping, I should be able to be back and running sometime next week! (if you haven't gone and kissed his feet on his blog yet, you must do so now!) Also, pray that the best of the best mail crew handle the precious laptop...most post seems to be handled by a bunch of armless orangutans. Here's to hoping it arrives working and in one piece!

My Beloved Blog Family

I only have a couple of minutes before I have to rush out to a birthday party but I had to share. My heart is so full and ready to burst! After my post just 2 days ago, Joshua from Viva La Nerd emailed me to let me know that he had worked on his spare laptop, got it all ready for me, and even had a 'gracious benefactor' offer to pay the shipping! He shipped it off this morning so I will probably have it sometime next week!

I will admit, I read his email and cried. I am just so overwhelmed by the wonderful people in my blogging community and am very grateful for all of you in my life. Branden had to talk me into blogging again back in April but I'm so glad I did it! I have met such wonderful people who, even though we've never met face to face, I consider to be dear friends of mine.

Thank you so much Joshua and thank you generous benefactor for this wonderful blessing that you have given to me!