Day 175: Christmas Memories

Today I drove out to Olathe to watch Andrew while Eric was at work.  Kris ended up being off of work, so I was able to go over to Papa's house and get started on organizing the 10 boxes of Christmas stuff that Grammy had accumulated.  Throughout the day I carefully took things out of boxes, threw out some storebought and/or broken items, took pictures of everything, and repacked it all in boxes.It took forever, and wasn't quite as exciting as I hoped it would be.  But it was nice to find a lot of old family ornaments.

 My car hit 51515 miles while we were driving through town.

This was always my favorite nativity scene, it was cool to find it.

Ashley really liked the giant penguin.

Day 174: Goodbye (Lawrence) Old Chicago!

Oh the memories!  In July of 2008 I started work at Old Chicago in Lawrence, it only lasted about an hour before I went home sick because of appendicitis.  Then I started working there again in August, and Paul, Deb, Eric, and I started the World Beer Tour.  1 WBT, many beers, pizzas, balsamic french fries, mini tours, and T-shirts later, Lawrence OC is closing it's doors.

Eric and I met up with Brian, Jen, Paul, Shannon, and Cody to celebrate and share one last round.  We were trying not to spend too much money, so we just had one big beer each and an order of  balsamic fries.  We had been waiting on the fries for at least twenty minutes, so I asked our waitress if they would be out soon.  Moments later, another server delivers them to our table, but it is the smallest order of fries I'd ever seen, and I wasn't going to pay $4 for them!  So I waved down the manager I used to work with and he said he'd bring out a fresh batch.  Right after that, our server walks up with an order of fries for us - not realizing that the other server had already brought them out.  She shrugged and passed them too us anyway, hooray!  We hadn't celebrated this success for long before the manager walked over with the largest portion of fries I'd ever seen - great success!  3 orders of fries for the price of one!

See the pennant behind my head - there were two there until a girl walked out with one of them under her coat.  She got caught - look how big it is, you can't just walk out with that!

Day 173: Brrrrrrr!

I've got the best husband ever!  He tucks me into a cocoon every night so I don't freeze to death!  I've got (in this order) a blanket, a heating blanket (set to 7/10), a quilt, and a fleece blanket folded into two layers.  It's an awful lot of blanket, but I can't sleep unless it feels like I'm in an oven!  We're both glad we each have a twin sized heating blanket.  He sleeps with a blanket, a heating blanket (set to 4/10) and the quilt.

That's an awfully large pile of blankets for just one person!  It's 5 layers deep!

Day 172: Selling Like Noone Else!

We've been really geared up about our journey out of debt recently, and have have been searching for some new ways to raise our income.  Through the spring and summer we made a few hundred dollars by selling a lot of books and video games on Half.com, but now that most of the items have sold we only make about $5 every other week on Half.  We also had a garage sale in August where we made a few hundred dollars.  Between getting rid of a lot of stuff when we thought we were going to be kicked out of our apartment, and selling a lot, we don't really have too many non-essentials.  But "not too many" is still more than we need, and I'm on a mission to sell it!

I've started posting ads on Craigslist with things like the dishes we had before we got married and my trombone from high school.  I've also posted ads for babysitting and pet sitting over the holiday break, and have come up with some great leads using that!  Wish us luck coming out ahead this December!

 One of the many pieces of junk taking up space in our closets - we sure brought it all, but now we're getting rid of it!

Day 171: Lazy Nights are the Best!

I cherish these nights where we can just chill with each other and the cats.  Often times we occupy ourselves with separate computers, games, or books.  It seems strange, but it's nice for us to be able to enjoy our own things while talking.  In fact, most nights it looks something like this...

 Eric and I surfing the web on our computers and the cats cuddled close by to stay warm!

Day 170: Do We Look Lost?

[cough-cough] The second-to-last disc of the last season of Lost has been sitting on our TV cabinet since October 13th... We just couldn't bring ourselves to end it/we just weren't in the mood for a serious weird drama.  Tonight we finally started the journey to the end! 

I can't believe that the "S" in Lost was messed up through all of the seasons!  How can they have not fixed something like that?!

Day 169: A Sunday Party!

Today was just about as eventful as a Sunday can get!  Ashley and I were Confirmed by Bishop Dean Elliot Wolfe, of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas; Andrew was Baptized by Father Gar Demo; Ashley, Eric and I are now Andrew's Godparents!  Andrew had his first ever picture with Santa, and he did a great job!  We went to our Dave Ramsey class and celebrated Paul & Deb finishing Baby Step 1.  Then we went to Zayne's 8th birthday party!  I know that was very BAM-BAM-BAM, but I don't care!


The whole joke behind a "Sunday Party" is that Eric and I went over to Sean and Deb's to drop off the Confirmation/Baptism invitation a few weeks ago and Zayne refused to acknowledge that the date was his birthday.  So Sean was joking saying we should have a Confirmation and Baptism party at their house, and a "Mommy-Doesn't-Have-Work-Today" party, and a Sunday Party!  Zayne just kept smiling and shaking his head saying "no!"

 

 Andrew really enjoyed kneeling and sitting on the kneelers.  He did a great job being quiet through the nearly 2 hour service!

 All of us reading the Baptismal Covenant for Andrew.  Eric and Ashley are hidden by me and that guy.

Ashley being Confirmed.

 Me being Confirmed, a great picture by Mom!

Andrew did a fine job being baptized!  He played in the water with his hand while Gar poured the water over his head.



Andrew and his Godfather, Eric, and Godmothers, Jessica and Ashley!

Andrew, his parents, his paternal grandparents, and his Godparents!

Mom, Alan, Andrew, and I went to visit Grammy's tree in the 22 degree weather.  It's sad that she couldn't be with us to celebrate.  Andrew likes visiting and touching the branches.


What a fun picture of Andrew and (a REALLY good) Santa!

Happy 8th Birthday Zayne!