A Year of Change

It’s supposed to snow big time in the mountains so last night after Ty’s basketball game, we loaded ourselves, the kids and Mojo into the car and headed to the hills to beat the snow.

Today Ty and I will go skiing and Lori and Jagger will do their own thing. I’m sure Mojo will get in a half dozen walks or more. I think we’ll head down early tomorrow so we can make church but we’ll see. We might ski again in the morning.

Lori had another drama filled day at work as did I. Too crazy to even describe. Ty had a great party at his school and Jagger did well on his finals. I think on Monday we’ll hopefully get to start Christmas shopping for you all meaning don’t be looking for any gifts before Christmas Eve.

Speaking of Christmas Eve, looks like we’ll be hosting dinner at our house after church. It appears easiest for us to host it so host it we will.

Time to go so Ty and I can hit the slopes, hope all’s well, 5 days to go, ho ho ho, God Bless.

Today is it, the last day of school until January 6th, whoa boy. Yesterday was another blur with us rushing around trying to get all our work done.

Jagger had no lunch (we’re out of food) so I took a Subway Sandwich to the school office which they said they’d deliver to his class. When I picked him up both he and Ty said they had no lunch? I called the school and after some research, his teacher had accidentally given it to the wrong kid. Of course the other “kid” just took it and didn’t say anything. A few hours later his teacher called and was very apologetic and said he insists on buying Jagger lunch today! Ty meanwhile somehow didn’t get a chance to eat as it was Colonial Day and I think they were supposed to have sack lunches and he was going to eat in the cafeteria.

So I loaded them both in the car and off we went to Elway’s for an early dinner. Lori had her work party and wouldn’t be home until 9 or 10 so I decided to get her Christmas shopping done at the same time so off to the mall we went after dinner.

Today is my little brother’s birthday! Tommy is 54 today, whoo hoo! Happy Birthday. He’s not doing anything tonight and Ty has a basketball game and then I think we’re headed to the hills to ski tomorrow.

Lori’s party was fun but long. She said she could have just done with the dinner and skipped the canvas and cocktail part of the evening.

Ty’s school party is today at 1:45 and then I need to run out and pick up Jagger at 2:20 and then we’ll go back and get Ty.

6 days until Christmas, ho ho ho, God Bless

Yesterday was a good day to turn 13. Jagger and all of us had a fun birthday. We wrapped it up with dinner at Sushi Sasa with a fun, tasty dinner.

Today is Colonial Day at Ty’s school. Yesterday his class was rewarded with no homework for the rest of the year as everyone turned in all their work during the week. Today Ty is dressing up as an indian, just like his brother did when he had the same day.

Today after work, or about 4pm, Lori and everyone from her work will go out to dinner for their Christmas celebration and then to a place called Canvas and Cocktails where they drink wine and paint, on a canvas.

Meanwhile I’ll be working away trying to get my last purchase order in from Texas. It’s $112,000 and I have to have it. The back and forth on this one has been going on for 2 weeks but I think I have it all done, cross your fingers.

Last Lori fell at work yesterday as she somehow had computer cords wrapped around her leg and when she stood up, down she went. She’s sore but hopefully ok. We’ve both had stomach aches for a few days and think it must be something we’re both eating, hmmm.

That’s it, we overslept and running late, God Bless.

Well today Jagger turns 13 years old. Talk about time flying, wow. Today is full of activities, presents this morning before school and then out to dinner for sushi tonight and then going up to Grandma’s to wrap the day up. In between of course we have school. Throw in a quarter of beef arriving around 1:30 this afternoon to put in the freezer and there you have it.

Yesterday was of course busy. The highlight of the day was the Beatnik Club at Ty’s school where all the kids read poems they wrote. In beatnik fashion, everyone snapped their fingers instead of clapping. Ty wrote and performed a nice poem about trees. Then at 6:30 Jagger and I went to the Manning Christmas Concert. He of course can’t play but had to go for his grade. The orchestra and band improved a bunch from the last concert right after school started. Ty came with us but Mom picked him up on her way home from work a little before 7pm when the concert started.

I still have some straggling purchase orders that must come in today. It’s a constant battle of back and forth with purchasing departments to get them to issue the documents. All documents must be in order as they have to pass both Italian and U.S. customs and immigration to have the container leave Italy on a ship and then be admitted to the U.S. upon arrival. Hopefully today I’ll wrap it all up. Cross your fingers.

Hope everyone is well, take care and God Bless.

I’m leaving at 6:45am this morning with Jagger to get him another x-ray on his arm. Hopefully we’re continuing to make progress. I need to be back in town by 9:30 so it’ll be a quick up and down trip.

Yesterday was another fun filled, pressure packed day. I was off to the distributor early and then here and there and everywhere. Finally I had to sit down on the couch at 4pm for a rest. Lori worked late and was also tired. The best thing about Christmas is maybe we’ll get to sleep in, oh wait, the kids will get up early for sure!

Guess I’ll run, hope everyone is well. Take a moment to sit back and listen to some holiday music and look at the lights as it’ll be over before you know it.

Take care and God Bless.

The day started off with me going to the gym and then stopping by the grocery store to pick up an almond croissant for my Mom. She’s usually still sleeping when I come back from the gym so I just make a loop in the plastic bag and hang it on her screen door for her to find when she takes her dog out in the morning.

Once I arrived home we all hurried to get cleaned up to go to church. This week we decided to visit the church where Jagger goes to Youth Group on Sunday nights. Turns out it was very fun and seems to be a good fit. Ty went downstairs with the other kids and had fun with all the Christmas activities and then was watching a Charlie Brown Christmas in the movie theater, and eating popcorn, when we came down to get him after the service. The associate pastor was a real nice guy and we knew some people as it’s pretty close to us.

Once we were home it was time to make chili and then watch some football. It started to snow about 9am or so and was going on and off all day long. I’m up 30 points or so in my fantasy game but the other guy has 3 people playing tomorrow night. So barring a total collapse by Jay Cutler of Chicago, which could happen, I’ll probably lose.

At 5pm Lori dropped Jagger off at the Youth Group Christmas party at church. It went until 8pm and he had a good time. Finally around 9 we all headed to bed.

Today I still have some purchase orders to get in and then a bunch of phone calls. It’s going to be a busy week as tomorrow Jagger and I have to drive back up to the mountains for another x-ray. Then Wednesday it’s his birthday, and he wants sushi for dinner, cha ching! Ty has 3 events at school this week with his party on Friday and then, bam, they’re off until January 6th!

So there you have it, a busy week and then Saturday we’ll start our shopping, if I last that long. Hope all’s well, take care and God Bless.

The morning started with me washing and vacuuming the car and then heading to Lowes to get some things to repair the broken backdoor. After that Lori was taking the black shutters off the front of the house as one was broken and the others were on their last legs. I then drug the hose out of the garage as I had put it away for winter, to wash the house where the shutters once hung.

Finally at 6pm we were ready to head over to the Varone’s for a Christmas party. The Varone’s are the parents of the infamous Vinny, Ty’s friend from school. When we arrived we were surprised to learn that it was mostly a family party so it was special to be included. Everyone had to bring a wrapped ornament for some sort of exchange so we brought four.

A few hours into the party, Tracy (Vinny’s mom) explained how the ornament exchange was going to work. Everyone drew a number from a Santa hat and that was the order in which you would choose your ornament. Once you opened your ornament you had to show everyone else what it was as the next person could either choose to open a new, still unwrapped one, or steal one from someone else that had already opened one. If someone stole yours, you would then take that persons place and either open a new one or steal one too! The only rule was that you could only steal once. As you can imagine, this made for lots of fun as people were stealing ornaments left and right from other people, kids included.

One ornament in particular was really in demand. It was a cute life sized squirrel that was all glittery and made of wood. One girl about 12 years old opened it and really wanted to keep it. Sadly for her, it was stolen right away and then made its way around the room (from other people stealing it too) until it finally ended up in Ty’s hands. Ty had picked earlier (he had an early number) but being his dad, I stole his ornament from him so he could take my place and pick again having the benefit of seeing all the ones opened before. All this time the 12 year old girl who first opened the squirrel was fuming with a mix of anger and disappointment begging people to trade her back the squirrel for two ornaments as she also had her Mom’s. No one unfortunately wanted what she had and Ty ended up, after everyone had picked at the game was over, with the coveted squirrel. By now the girl was almost in tears, but also still seething with anger. I noticed as she followed Ty and Vinny out to the garage where they were going to get a soda. Turns out she cornered them there and said she wasn’t letting them out of the garage until Ty traded her for the squirrel. Her dad luckily followed her and made her let the boys out. Then the girl, went outside at sat by herself. We of course didn’t know any of this was going on at the time. Ty came back in and I asked “where’s the girl” and Ty just said outside. He then said he was going to go give the girl the squirrel. I said why and he said “cause she really wants it bad”. So I said ok if you want to, go ahead. He then went out to give it to her but I could tell he really wanted to keep it. Again I didn’t know all the drama that took place earlier. So off he went with Jagger and Vinny following him to give his coveted squirrel away. He offered it to her and she basically screamed at him and threw it on the ground! Ty then picked it up and came back in and told me the whole story. I was very proud of him for putting the girls feelings ahead of his own. The funniest part is right when we were leaving, Ty went up to Vinny’s Aunt’s boyfriend (who works on a ranch in Walden, small world) and asked if he wanted to trade the squirrel for his fox! Turns out Ty liked this cute little fox ornament even more than the squirrel! Mark (the boyfriend) was happy to trade as his girlfriend (Vinny’s 35 year old Aunt Laura) was one of the people who had the squirrel stolen from her earlier! So there you have it, Ty was very kind and generous and ended up with the fox he wanted all along!

Now to today. I’m making chili after church to get ready for the Bronco game. We’re supposed to get some good snow and it’s going to be cool for the next week. Lots to do but we can’t really Christmas shop until about the 20th when we get paid again. That’ll be an adventure! Hope everyone is well, take care and God Bless.

The weekend is finally here. We were going to try to go skiing today but I’m just too tired. We’re limping through the month trying to make it until 2015. It seems Lori and I just don’t have a spare moment.

Today I need to go buy some more weather stripping to stick on the back door as you can see sunlight shinning through underneath and on the side. The worst thing is that it was a new door a couple years ago!

Guess I’ll run as I’m out of things to say, hope everyone is well, God Bless

Tonight the 12 Days of Christmas begin. The kids put their shoes out starting tonight and if they’re good, they get a small treat or toy but if they’re bad, it’s a stick or a rock or piece of coal. Ours usually get something good but sometimes get a stick or rock. St. Nick used to come to our house when we were young. It’s a Scandinavian thing.

Today I’m off to the distributor at 6:30am and then back by 8. Throw in a conference call from 8:30 until 10 and then a brief meeting at 10:30 and I’ll be ready to hit the road again for some errands. Meanwhile Lori will be working away making the World a happier place by churning out some new breasts. What could be a more noble, helpful occupation than helping women turn their tired old small boobs into big bodacious happy breasts? Man she has a good job. Now they also do some other things down there (excuse the pun) that we won’t mention. In any case if they can make a person feel better about themselves, more power to them.

Last night we had my Mom over for hamburgers. I think she had a good time and the kids and us were glad to spend some time with her.

Hard to believe it’s the 12th. I need about 6 more purchase orders to come in today and then I’m good to go. I’m not really worried about any of them but until I actually have them, well, you know what they say, don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

Time to run, hope all’s well, take care, God Bless.

The days are running into the nights and the nights are running into the days. The only thing that breaks them up is getting kids to and from school. After my afternoon meeting the boys and I called Mom and told her to meet us at Elways for dinner since we were already downtown. After a quick bite, we were home by 6:30. Today I’m playing the waiting game for purchase orders (what’s new) but I feel pretty good about it. I had Illinois causing a little problem yesterday but worked it all out.

Today it’s more school and work. It just never seems to stop but without it, what else would we do? It’s now 6:48 which is already late so time to run. Hope you all are well, take care and God Bless.