New Years Eve

Well, tomorrow is New Years eve, and my hubby and I will be having a nice quiet evening together.  When the kids were younger we would take them all out for Chinese food early in the evening, then we would go home and watch the ball fall.  We continued to do this even when the kids were older except when we got home they would all go out and we would still stay home and watch the ball fall.  As you can see nothing much has changed except the fact that we are a lot older, now I hope we just stay awake long enough to see the ball fall.  Oh, that's another thing, I don't think it is a ball anymore, isn't it an apple or something like that?

New Years day the family will be coming to our house so we can have our annual Sauerkraut and Pork dinner.  It is supposed to bring luck to your family in the new year.  You see this is my German origin coming out, even though I make more Italian food then German food, much to my dad's chagrin.

Well, I just would like to wish you and your family a wonderful prosperous New Year!  Talk to you all in 2011~

Family Day

Well, Christmas eve and Christmas day were wonderful.  We were with family and enjoyed every minute.  As I get older I seem to realize how quickly time passes by.  Like Oprah, I am trying to learn to live in the moment.  Being with family this weekend I tried to do just that.  Sitting there looking at our family as they each opened their gifts was just awesome.  We have been so fortunate to have such a respectful family.  My husband and I just look at each other and we are both thinking, how did we do this?  When you get married people usually don't read books on telling you how to raise good kids.  We have 4 children,  I am not saying that we didn't have our challenges.  Like the time when we were at Penn State for # 1 & #2's graduation, and # 3 was home babysitting # 4 (because he had a playoff game).  # 3 decided to send # 4 to a friends house so he could have his own graduation party.  We received a call from our home town police and said their was a party at our house and what would we like to do.  My husband told the policeman to get everyone out of the house, (of course they were already out of the house due to the fact that one of kid # 3's friend called him and said that he heard on a police scanner that they were directed to our address) and we would handle it when we got home the next day.  Kid # 3 lost his privilege of going to senior week.  So we did have a few problems along the way, and thankfully we all made it through those rough teenage year.  When we are all together and reminiscing about things that happened growing up, that story has been the topic of many a conversations at our dinner table.  We can all laugh about it now.  All I can say is that we have been blessed.
I guess the point of the story is that enjoy every minute with your children and loved ones, because it passes all too quickly.  When we talk about retirement now, we think we should have saved more money when we were younger.  We both look at each other and laugh because who would have ever thought when we were younger that we would grow old, but that is a story for another time.

Christmas Time!

Well, it's almost here, tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  I was in such a good mood up until two days ago, now I feel a little sad.  I can't put my finger on it, I don't know why.  May be it's just that I really can't do anything with this broken ankle, and it has me a little down.  Christmas is my favorite time of year, and right now I am wrapped and ready, so that should make me happy.  Usually I am wrapping on Christmas Eve at 5 pm, right before we all get together to exchange gifts.

They are predicting snow in this area for Sunday/Monday.  It is really just a tease of course.  They are giving us three scenario's of the storm.  I guess they just say that so they can't be wrong no matter what happens.

Since our daughter got married and started having children we have changed our family tradition a little.  We use to all gather at our house on Christmas Eve and we had an Open House for friends and family.  We would open gifts on Christmas day after Santa came.  Since we have downsized to a little community and our daughter has children and the big house we have decided to go there and continue the tradition, except we exchange gifts that night. 

When your children are grown and out of the house it is a little different on Christmas morning now.  So Christmas Eve is our Christmas morning.  Christmas day they can spend with us or their significant other/husband's family.  It works out pretty good.

Well, that is our tradition, what is yours?  It's almost here!  I am wishing you and your family a joyous holiday and good things to happen in 2011!  Enjoy each other and appreciate how lucky we all are.

Tote

Sunday Football

I can't watch any more football!  My team is not doing too well, so I loose confidence and can't watch anymore.  Anyway I have a question.  If my son is dating someone for at least 2 months now,  what should I get her for Christmas?  She is a lovely lady, and I hope things go well for both of them.  I just don't get much information from him, so I don't know how serious things are yet.  Any ideas? 

Have a great day.

Christmas decorating!

I think we are done decorating for the Holidays. My husband has been so patient with me, (since I have a broken ankle, therefore I can't move around too much). He has done such a good job decorating and listening to me give direction. I wish he didn't have to help me so much. I do appreciate it and I thank him from the bottom of my heart.
I have been practicing with my camera and different settings. There is so much to learn about taking pictures. I would love to take a class. I especially like to take pictures of our grand children, which you have probably guessed by now. One thing on my bucket list when I retire is photography lessons, but that is a little way down the road. Oh well, here are some pic's of my favorite decorations.

Thank you so much for visiting!   Tote

Trimming the Tree!

Well, it is that time of year, the time when we all get together and trim the tree.  Now you see since we are empty Nester's we have our grand kids come over and help us.  They get so excited to help, and when they are done it seems like all the ornaments are at one level and below.  This year we got the ladder out for them.  They loved that!  I took the pictures since I am chair bound due to my broken ankle.  They are so much fun to watch.  Megan who is 6 loves being the boss of Connor who is 4.  "Connor, you line them up and I will hang them."  "No, I want to hang them too!"  "My turn on the ladder!"  You get the point.

The tree turned out beautiful and they were so proud of the job they did.  (We did move a few ornament's around.)  Here are a few more pictures of them decorating, and a few of our ornament's that I love.  Some of the handmade ornament's I made for our children were given to them for their trees after they were married.

I really want to take a picture of our Byers Choice Carolers, but that will be for another time.
Hope you all have fun decorating for this Holiday season, and remember why we have this Holiday season!  It's someones birthday!

Giveaway!

Checkout "how I met your father" blog for a great Lilly giveaway!  She writes such a great blog about life and trying to find her way.  Love reading it.

Thanksgiving & Snow!

I can't believe it, I am sitting here watching the Thanksgiving day parade (I keep switching back and forth from Macy's NY and Philadelphia parade), and it is snowing here in Collegeville, PA!  It just started in Philadelphia as well!  I love it.  I have my yams cooking for my special Sweet Potato casserole, and my Turkey will go in the oven very soon.  The first snow of the season.  I love watching the snow.  It makes me want to burrow down and make soup.  You see that is what I use to do when we had a full house of kids still living here.  School would be called off and everyone know Mom would make soup.  We would all shovel the driveway, come in have Hot Chocolate and start the soup!  Such great memories.  Now we are empty Nester's and downsized to a little community.  I will be taking the turkey to our daughters house where all the family will gather, since she has the big house now.  I still insist on making the Turkey.  I found this wonderful Brine at William Sonoma a few years ago and have been using it ever since.  My turkeys have never been as moist as they are now since using this wonderful Brine. 
I just want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, hopefully everyone will be spending it with their loved ones.  I will be giving thanks for what a wonderful family and friends we have and thankful for all we have in our lives.  God bless you all!

A Birthday 'thank you".

Well, it was a lovely birthday party.  It's so much fun when we get together.  I will try and post pictures later.  My birthday gift was a Laptop!  I was so excited.  I think they felt sorry for me trying to go upstairs to our office on my butt!  You see our computers are upstairs in our loft, and with a broken ankle it is a little hard getting up there.  My laptop is loaded up with everything.  I am so lucky that my son has an IT business!  He is coming over tomorrow to transfer everything from my desktop to my laptop.  I am so excited!  I can't thank everyone enough.  It is a wonderful gift!  So now between the cooking shows, the HGTV channel and the Hallmark Christmas movie channel and this new laptop, I am set!
We get another day with the family this week~Thanksgiving!  Really looking forward it!  What a great week!!  If I don't blog tomorrow, I just want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I hope you are all spending the day with the people you love.

Saturday night.......

Right now we are watching The Polar Express with the grand kids.  Interesting movie.  Their eyes are glued to the tv.  It is such a life like animation.  We love spending time with our grand kids.  They say the funniest things.  Tomorrow we will be with the whole family.  We are celebrating my birthday.  Can't wait to see everyone.  We all live close by, the farthest is 25 miles, but everyone leads such busy lives it's hard to plan a get together so when we do get together we
all really enjoy it.  My husband and I feel very fortunate to have such a awesome family, we thank God every day.  Right now I think Grandpop is a little sleepy.  He has both kids on his lap and his eyes look a little heavy.  Maybe when this movie is over it will be time for bed.
I will let you know tomorrow how the party went!   Have a wonderful night.

New to Me!

Well, now that I have this blog I was told I should keep it going.  You see, I am usually working full time and blogging takes a back seat.  Now I have some free time on my hands so I decided to give it a go again.  I am open to advice and any tips people would like to send my way.
My husband just called to tell me he is sitting on route 422 in a rain storm.   The thing is, I think the drivers on route 422 start to panic when it rains.  Traffic goes to a craw, for no apparent reason.  I realize people want to slow down, but this is a craw.  I could probably run home faster, if I didn't have a broken ankle!  The drivers on route 422 also don't realize that the left lane is for passing!  Aren't you supposed to get a ticket if you ride in the left lane?  I need some clarification on this.  As you can tell, this is a real pet peeve of mine.  Please pass this advise on to eveyone......left lane is passing lane!

How we spent our Summer Vacation

It was a vacation that we were so looking forward to. We left on Saturday, Oct. 23rd for a wonderful Cruise visiting five islands. We planned to rent Mopeds in Bermuda and Zip line in Antigua, beach in St Thomas and so many more things were planned. There were six of us, 3 couples, my brother and sister in law, Andy and Nancy, friends of theirs Lou and Anne and Jim and myself.  I was a little nervous this time and I didn't know why. Jim woke me up early that day and kept saying, "Susan, just keep thinking of those little drinks with the little umbrellas in them."

Our first day was at sea. We watched the Eagles on the big screen out on the deck by the pool. I decided to have a massage, and it was wonderful! Jim even remarked how relaxed I finally looked. I felt great. We had a great dinner that night and talked about our docking in Bermuda the next day
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Bermuda was beautiful, and we couldn't wait to get to our Mopeds and ride into Hamilton. Nancy and I both wanted to go to Trimminghams, which was one of the nicest stores in Bermuda. We went to Bermuda on our Honeymoon and that was one store I was dying to see again. I was so excited to be in Bermuda finally for a second time.

Now this was our first clue: I couldn't find my sneakers that morning. I know I packed them and remember putting them in the closet. No where to be found. I would just have to buy a pair on the island because I would also need them for zip lining.
We rode our Mopeds into Hamilton and found the  parking places for mopeds. On the way Lou and Ann had a mishap on their moped and ran into a gas station. Clue # 2, the mopeds were dangerous! Oh, I forgot to mention we all almost ran into each other on the way, looking for the Elbo Beach Club, where Andy & Nancy stayed on their Honeymoon.

We had lunch in a nice little restaurant and Ann said she was riding the ferry back to the boat and she was not getting back on the moped. The waitress told us we could even bring our bikes on the ferry with us. This was clue #3. We should have gone with her. But no, we decided to ride the bikes back to the boat.
We found a sneaker store and bought a pair of sneakers.

We were on Toast House Rd and I got a little close to the curb and down I went! As this was happening, I was thinking to myself, this can't be happening, as I was sliding across the sidewalk on my face & body. It was just a dream from there. Jim stopped and help me sit up, as I was sitting up my ankle just flopped over. I told Jim that I broke my ankle, and he kept saying, " now maybe not", but I knew it was broken. I couldn't even cry. I think I was in shock. A car that was following us pulled up and a lady got out to help. I truly believe she was an angel sent to help us. She called 911 and also the bike company to pick up their bike. The ambulance came and off to the hospital we went. Andy and Nancy told Jim they would take care of the luggage. We were supposed to be back to the boat by 4:30pm and it was now 3:45. The boat captain called Jim to find out how we were doing and if we would make it back to the ship. Jim told the captain that he didn't think we were going to make it, but we needed to get out luggage due to the fact that we needed our passports . As it happens, the lady following us came to the hospital to see how I was doing. She volunteered to take Jim to the boat to pick up our luggage. After they picked up the luggage she suggested he buy a phone card to make long distance calls to the family, since we didn't have international calling on our phones. She also suggested and made calls to find Jim a Guest House where he could stay. She was our angel.

I needed an operation, they called a surgeon. After a two hour operation I had a plate and 7 screws in my ankle plus road rash down the side of my face and body. Jim was by my bed for two days as I drifted in and out of a drug induced sleep. I finally started to feel better, and we decided we needed to get home. I wanted an orthopedic surgeon at home to look at the ankle and confirm that everything was ok. Thank God we took the insurance for our cruise. The company, On Call International helped us through everything, they kept in contact with our family at home and made arrangements for our flight home, first class! I can't begin to tell you how nice everyone was to us. Our angel, Molessia went out of her way to help us. Everyone we came in contact with helped us.

I was never so happy to be back home in Philadelphia. The surgeon here said Dr. Peckett did a wonderful job with the operation. I am to be off my feet for three months and I must say my husband has been so helpful, and a good sport.  It has been three weeks now, and I still can't believe this happened.  The road rash on my face is almost gone.  As for my leg and ankle, it still has a little more healing up to do.  Oh, by the way, Trimminghams is no longer in Bermuda, they went out of business.

We are hoping to get back to Bermuda some day, but I don't think we will be riding mopeds!

Is spring just around the corner?

Well, Jim bought me a new camera for Christmas, and I love the fact that you can zoom in to capture a picture! As I was looking at the snow out side I saw this Cardinal perched on the tree. Time to see if I can take a close up from inside. I was so excited it worked! This bird is beautiful and so is my dog Jake.