2009 Recap

On January 1st, 2009 I started my blog. I think I said "Happy New Year" or something equally exciting. But it was a start....and sometimes it's that first step that is the hardest. 300 posts later and here we are. I thought I'd end up the year with a few pictures. Every year, for the last 8 or so years, I've made a calendar of photos for our family. These are the photos I used for the calendar...most have been posted here before, but I thought I'd share anyway.

January....Billy on his trampoline.

February...Brian playing guitar.

March...our annual Easter picture. Click here to see a progression of them. Billy is the tallest now.

April....Billy playing baseball.

May...Brian playing soccer.

June...Billy playing baseball.

July...Brian in his CAP uniform.

August...Brian and Billy leaping into the pool during our Washington D.C. / Virginia vacation.

September...Brian and Billy on the first day of school. First time being in the same school in 6 years.

October....Billy playing football.

November...Brian playing soccer.

December....Billy and Brian smiling for our Christmas card photo.

I'm not sure which direction my blog will take in the next year. But I plan on continuing....and I hope that life will bring some wonderful surprises to share. But in the mean time, I'll end the year as I started it by wishing everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

A Few More Pictures.

The year is quickly winding down. The leap from 2009 to 2010 seems like a bigger one than normal. Sort of like in High School when 1980 sounds so much further away than 1979. Not just a change of year, but a change of decade. Does that mean we should have bigger plans laid out for the coming years? Longer range plans? Hmm. Better resolutions maybe.

Here are the last few pictures of the day. I only have two more to take. I probably should make them good ones. Better start thinking of something now. :-) This one is of one of my reindeer candle holders with the Christmas tree lights behind it.

This is a different candle holder with the Christmas tree lights behind it. See what I mean that I better start thinking about something to take a picture of??

Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus in my Nativity set.

At church a few weeks ago some kids were up in front for the children's sermon. The pastor asked them to identify some of the characters in the Nativity set. When asked about Mary and Joseph the little boy said, "Is that Adam and Eve?" So cute. Could have been. Why else would they call it Christmas "Eve"?

Better run, got things to do...gotta decide if I'm doing the 365 picture thing again. Gotta figure out some resolutions for the next year, and for the next decade. Gotta see if the Wii fit still works. Maybe a nap would be better. Too much to think about.

Catching up with photos

Things get a little bit busy around here at Christmas time. I thought I'd catch up on my blog with a few of my pictures of the day for this month. This one is of Billy and Brian, taken on the same day as our Christmas card photo.


Lights on our railing.

Lights on a crystal wreath in our kitchen.

Greens on my hutch cupboard with lights over the dining room window in the background.

A neighbors outdoor tree...blurred on purpose because the colors are cool.

Lights and garland on our fireplace mantel.

Lights on the tree taken through a pair of "holiday lights" glasses.

Figures from my Christmas village display.

The angel on top of our Christmas tree.

One of many gift jars that I made this year.

Pastor Wayne at the Christmas Candle light service on December 23rd.

My mom's table set for Christmas eve.

Barb's table set for Christmas day.

A white lily on my mom's hutch with her red Christmas Tea service on the shelf in the back ground.

Christmas was as busy and as fun as ever. There were some snow storm predictions that weren't as bad as they feared. Rain on Christmas day. Coming home to find that someone had snow blowed our driveway. And lots of memories of Christmas' past....and hopefully new memories for the boys. A brand new year is right around the corner. I love how the new year feels like a fresh new start. Kind of silly when it's really just another day...but I still like it. :-) Hope your holidays were merry and meaningful.

Until next time...

Christmas Picture

I've been meaning to share some of the pictures I took at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, but my hard drive is almost full and it's not working too well for me! Time to clean it out...but that won't happen until after Christmas...so for today I'll share our Christmas card photo with you.

You know, the Christmas cards that I haven't gotten out yet. It's on the list for today. Better hop to it! I'm hoping to get back into the blogging swing after the holidays...after I clear out the hard drive...and all that. :-)

Vegas Lights

We were in Las Vegas about a week and a half ago. While it is interesting there during the day, it really comes to life at night. Las Vegas at night.

The casinos are all lit up, it's hard to know where to look first.

There are lit water falls...

...and lit streets.

...and lit buildings....

...and lit moving billboards...not that I'd notice that or anything

I thought that the signs were pretty.

All the pretty colors.

Oh look, it's the Eiffel Tower in Paris in Las Vegas all lit up. We decided to take the elevator to the top of the tower....all 541 feet of it. It's a half scale version of the real Eiffel Tower.

Here's the view from the top....the water show at the Bellagio was pretty cool from up above.

But the best part was seeing the lights going as far as you could see on every side.

I'm not sure which was East or West or what but every way you looked there were lights....

...and more lights....

....and more lights....well....you get the picture.

Here is a picture of the Las Vegas strip from above.

...and another one. Then it was time to take the elevator down, back to reality....

...the reality of Vegas that is.

Which really isn't very real at all.