Saturday, December 23, 2006

Living Nativity

We had no idea that there would be a living nativity downtown. We would love to have stopped but the girls needed to be HOME. {g} We did snap a quick photo. I'll have to try to find out if they'll be out again tomorrow as we could swing by on our way to the Christmas Eve Candlelight service.
The Girls are Home! (Photos tomorrow?)

The bus finally arrives...26 hours late! ::snort:: BUT if they'd been on the plane, they'd still be in WA like several of their friends. God is good. Our chance of snow is now at 0%! {bg}

Initial hugs...

Stacia isn't sure what all the hoopla is about but decided quickly that if the littles thought the girls were "ok" she needed their attention! LOL
Zander told me earlier in the day that "Bre will SQUEAL like a baby when she sees us." ::snort:: This little guy has NOT stopped smiling since the girls got home. I know now that he's been very depressed. When we got to the bus and the girls weren't there he said, "Mom - I told you they are at the airport!" ::snort:: A bad moment came a few moments after we were home. He turned to me and said, "Now, Dad will be home and then it will be Merry Christmas." I'm praying for him now - because I see the pure joy having the girls home and I know that they'll be one more goodbye before Mike is home.
GRAIN FOR A YEAR!

We drove to a farming community to meet the truck and pick up our grain. There ended up being LOTS of great young men and women to help unload the truck. They were super. Here you see some of the unloading....
The younger ones were excited to see COWS...when we moved down here Zander had never seen a cow...he called all the cows he saw on the drive down "moose". ::snort::

All organized in the garage with co-op baskets neatly alongside....
My Productive - Unproductive day

I planned to deep clean, bike, bake, make a cheese cake, wrap gifts, and pick up the girls.

I began wrapping gifts.

The day went WILD. Early this a.m. I heard that the semi truck was NOT coming in with our grain until after the New Year - shew - no need to deal with that today. THEN I heard it WAS coming in and not before noon as first expected but somewhere around 3:30 - 4:30. The pick up place is 45 minutes from my home. Unloading the truck would take time. I would not be back to pick up the girls at 5:00. I began to call my friend, Adrienne, who was my plan B on this whole grain thing. SHE was on terminal hold with Amazon trying to fix a major headache. She is pregnant and can't lift. Her dh was working until 6:30....we decided to see if we couldn't simply go out together after the girls were here....no - they really needed us to do it at 3:30. They needed the boys to come even if I didn't to help load...I couldn't possibly send the boys to miss the girls without any option. ARGH.

I decided to take my bike ride. I'm only 3 miles away from 500!!! I didn't finish because 1. it was VERY cold and windy, 2. I needed to deal with this grain thing and 3. Arielle wants to ride the last mile or so with me.

Got home and worked some more on the grain thing. The girls called and were 2 hours late out of Amarillo. They were to be in at 5:30 -6:00 now. The timing would still be close but I decided I'd load all the children into the van and pick up my grain and the grain for two others....and Adrienne went too to pick up hers. She and I had lots of grain and it wouldn't all fit even in OUR vans. ::snort:: I picked Adrienne up - drove her to base to get their van and then we headed out....this is when I discovered she is a SPEED DEMON. I was going 75 and she STILL pulled waaaay ahead of me. We decided that our speedometer is slow about 3 miles....but I think hers must be fast...because she was WAY ahead of us. We finished grain with just enough time for me to make it to the bus depot at 5:45.

We rushed in and there were hardly any people in the depot. They said the bus wouldn't be in until 7:30. I decided to treat the children to Schlotskys. We went through the drive through and came back to have a picnic in the VAN in the parking lot. The girls called and they were 40 minutes out...they would be in before 7:30. I passed the news along in the depot and that caused great joy for those who were 2 hours late to catch the bus for the next stop.

The girls arrived....lots of hugging. Non-stop catching up on trip, Master's, WA etc. They showered. I fed them steamed veggies and salad...what they requested. I took them to Chick fil A to see Cy. We did NOT have a shake or such. LOL The littles have fallen asleep and the older 5 are STILL talking in the boy's room - it's 12:27 AM.
Family Update

The girls are in N TX. They arrived an hour ago and will leave at 11:00 - they'll get in tonight at 5:15. I could go get them - it's only a 5 hour drive - but Mike says to stay put.

Mike's got a concert, a Christmas Eve service and two services on Christmas...so he'll be busy for the next few days.

Blogger Question

So, Blogger Beta is dead and new Blogger lives....did anyone else have the "add element" button disappear from the layout/page element page? I can remove things...but I can't add new links, photos etc via the "add element" page. Any suggestions? Also, my dog tag in the side bar disappeared. LOL
Finally! The Photo will upload. Isn't this really pretty? I think I will begin to look for a Jesus stocking for next year. Debbie suggested buying one of the regular red ones and writing the name in Sharpie....which I thought would be fine...but now I'm thinking something a bit more regal or special would be cool....or maybe I'll find a countryish cross stitched one with a nativity on the front or something....just right. I have a year to look.

SLEEP IS FOR WIMPS! and Big Sisters...Stacia tries to convince Arielle that it is time to begin the day....