Slowing Down, Gearing Up

Wow, I caught my breath today. It has been a busy week! As I said before I picked up my niece, her husband and the baby for New Year's Eve. We had a great time. Below is a picture of my niece and great-niece. Aren't they cute!

On New Years Day we decided to have a movie marathon so we went to rent some. We picked up popcorn and cokes as well. We stopped back by my friends house to pick up the camera I left there the night before, visited for awhile then came on home. As it was New Year's Day we had to have some traditional good luck foods: black eyed peas. My husband grilled chicken and we had black eyed peas and cornbread. No one wanted cabbage so I didn't fix that. I would have been the only one eating it. We played Skip-Bo for awhile then went back to the den for the movies.

We saved Happy Feet for the baby the next day. I took my niece & family to the new Pizza Hut Bistro for dinner and made it back home by six in time for the movie. The local nieces and greats were invited over. That was a total of 6 little kids - OH MY. Rusty and the cats had to stay in our bedroom, it overwhelmed them. We had plenty of popcorn, cokes, sweet tea, and other snacks. The kids enjoyed the movie for the most part. Part of their time was spent with Uncle David in the computer room talking and watching him work.

Thursday morning we got up, finished another movie and got ready to go. We went to Tyler for breakfast at IHoP. Lots of coffee & yummy food. After a bit of shopping I took them on home.

On the way back home I stopped at Hobby Lobby where I got a great sunset picture from the parking lot, and some stamping paper & ink from the store. Them on to Barnes & Noble for a Vinte Vanilla Latte. Love it, gotta have it. Also picked up another new book. This one is March by Geraldine Brooks.

Today I cleaned up the house. I'm about tired of cleaning. :) David and I ate out with some close friends at the Ranch House and went to the show to see The Water Horse. I wish I could get a copy of the little poster they were handing out to the kids. It would be great in my classroom. I always read The Mysterious Tadpole by Steven Kellogg to my class when we discuss thinking about the story as you listen or read, and for studying illustrators as well as real & make believe & well, lots of other stuff. This would be great for comparisons.

Have to get back in gear! Vacation is about up. School starts back up on Monday!

After Christmas

I did the after Christmas shopping thing yesterday and got some really good gifts for next year! And at a good price. I love to go to Lifeway Bookstore the day after Christmas. Target and Wal-Mart were second and third on my list for wrapping paper, gift bags, tissue paper & ornaments. I get a lot of white tissue paper that I can use through the year and usually have enough left for the next round of Christmas gifts before I buy the next batch of tissue paper at half price!

Today will be spent doing laundry and the house cleaning I've been trying to ignore. I also need to go out to the guest house ;) (travel trailer) and freshen everything there. My niece, her husband and my great-niece are coming for New Years and want to stay out there. It is hooked to electricity so has heating and air conditioning. No bathroom facilities though, while parked in the yard.

I checked out "Blogging for Dummies" from the library and will try to read and make sense of some of that as well. I'm thinking I'll probably always be a point and grunt kind of computer user, never learning much of that code stuff! Point and grunt programs have done well by me so far!

Just day to day stuff that goes on daily!