Thankful for my friend the past year

Last year during the Super Bowl, I got acquainted with the new couple that had started coming to our church. For some reason it took us a couple of months to actually meet each other because we never were there at the same time.  Looking back a year I am very thankful for our year of friendship. She challenges me to be more fun, more giving and take a different perspective on situations. Our runs have been great as well as games and movies and meals together!

I'm so happy that you moved here and decided to be my friend and your cute husband too. I hope that we have many more years together! Even if we don't get to live in the same place for very much longer, we'll have great memories of 2008!

My house will be lighter

While my boys are away having a grand time with aunt, I have decided that it's time to lighten my house. Right now I am purging preschool toys. If you are interested in any of these for yourself or some organization (i.e. church nursery), let me know. I would like these out of my house before the boys get back in so they don't arouse memories and subsequent pleadings to keep such items!

Sesame Street Picnic With Friends 24 piece box puzzle
Nick Jr Blue's room 24 piece box puzzle
**TAKEN** Sesame Street Bugs! 24 piece box puzzle
**TAKEN** Disney Winne the Pooh 24 piece box puzzle
**TAKEN** Sesame Street Garden 24 piece box puzzle
Blue's Clue 25 piece board puzzle (Blue & Pink in a pool with sand toys around them)
(All puzzles have all pieces are in really good condition.)

**TAKEN** Sesame Street Spanish-English Memory Match Card Games (hardly used)

The Mailbox Numbers for Little Learners grades PreK-K. This retails for 17.95 and has hardly been touched. It's not a workbook...it's activities for a mom/teacher to give to a child/ren. Find more info here.

**TAKEN** 4 Paint with Water Books that still have quite a few good pages in them (all used pages are gone)

Package of "Wipe-Off" books with 4 markers in a plastic container made to hold all of it. Newly cleaned.

**TAKEN** "Who Lives Where?" A Memory and Matching Game. It comes in a very nice wooden case. It's a fun game for matching for little ones. http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Where-Wooden-Memory-Matching/dp/B00011F5LM 

Trivia Pursuit DVD Pop Culture Board Game (not a preschool game...just something that we haven't played)

Alphabet Bingo by Trend Enterprises (up to 36 players)

2 Play-a-Sound Wipe Off Talking Activity Books - Clifford and Little People

Bob the Builder Counting Hammer

Fisher Price Guitar-Violin

**TAKEN** Stacked Car Track where the cars flip over as they go from one track to the next. There are no markings on this as to who makes it and what it may actually be called. It was lots of fun when the boys were smaller.

Rescue Heroes Aquatic Command Center

Green Tractor that has buttons on it and it moves and plays music

Fisher Price Dog Xylophone

**TAKEN** Magnetic Alphabet Letters

6 Pom-poms - blue, yellow, red

**TAKEN** Card Games:
Go Fish (one large, one small)
Bible Crazy Eights
Noah Card Game
Battle of Jericho Card Game
Jonah Go Fish
Noah's Ark Matching

Foam Letters (about 3 inches tall)

Foam interlocking squares that have letters and numbers and corresponding pictures. The pictures "punch" out.

I may post more as I clean out more boxes from the storage room.

(For those who delight in goals and statistics...I'm up to one box of junk, one large, overflowing box of items listed here, a large bag of recycled paper, a few items to Freecycle, 20 plastic containers to Head Start and a bag of winter gear to Partnership [foster care, etc.]. Oh, the stack of too small clothes is growing well too.)

Sickness without TV

This weekend I had a new challenge! I came down with some flu symptoms and was in bed for close to a day. What's a person to do in bed when they aren't feeling well? My entire life, I watched TV in this situation. Well, we don't have any TV reception!

So, what did I do? I read and when I was too tired to read, I actually went to sleep. Sleeping is what I should be doing anyway, right? I could have watched a movie or brought up something on the Internet from one of our laptops, but I was content with my other activities. I may have made myself get out of bed a little faster too because I wasn't being sucked into more and more TV shows!

Yes, we can survive without TV reception though I would have enjoyed watching the football games yesterday. If we were all well then we probably would have sought out someone watching the game...but didn't wish to infect any other households.

Being home

We'll it's about exactly a week since our bus left the resort in Jamaica. It's single digits outside and snowing! What a contrast.
It was a wonderful vacation. We really enjoyed the all-inclusive resort a lot. We liked that we didn't have to have our money out for anything and people weren't holding hands out for tips at all. We loved that activities were included such as the tennis pro, the catamaran and manicure/pedicure and things we wouldn't have done if we would have had to pay for it individually.

I want to emphasize that we really liked our vacation a lot! It's one of the first vacations that we were relaxed the entire time and never were really wondering what the other person thought - like they were trying to have fun just because they thought the other person was having fun. I do have to say that the food was not spectacular. It was good, it was plentiful and very available. There was not just a fabulous meal though but that's OK. The free flowing drinks were yummy. We aren't huge drinkers so I can't really comment on the quality of the alcohol. If the fruity drinks were weak, that was just fine with us. The wine was OK - nothing spectacular but since they kept pouring, I can't complain. If you wanted better wine, it was available for purchase.
It's definitely something that we will consider to go back to in the future. I don't know that we would do a family resort with just the four of us, but I think it would be fun to do with the extended family.

Vacation Ends

Day 7
Our last morning. Tennis as usual. Looking forward to warm days (today not one of them) at home to keep up new skills. Breakfast but no beach until showers and packing. A walk on the beach after loading everything back in suitcases. Didn't know about complimentary laundry until too late. Our last bottles of water and bask in the sunshine before heading to airport. Used money for the first time in 5 days for gifts for the little ones. Identify theft rears it's ugly head in immigration, but were cleared without too much fuss. DFW airport memories abound! Reality of winter as we head back to grandma's.

Day 8
Lots of hugs and excitement! All four now packed up. One last suburbia stop on the way home. E-mail, a little laundry, unpacking and off to P family benefit. Spend the evening with friends. Great way to end a wonderful week!

Vacation Memories - Day 5 & 6

Day 5
More tennis and becoming chummy with tennis pros. Maybe we shouldn't eat so much breakfast so we can tryout lunch! Reading, walks on the beach and some more sailing. A little too much sun in just a few spots. More tennis and yoga before shower and dinner at La Pasta. Another moonlit walk on the beach.

Day 6
Regulars at tennis again with a few others. The regularity is improving our hitting. Sweaty to breakfast and to the beach. Not enough wind to sail at first but after a few chapters we were off. Oops, there goes the lid to the sunscreen. Didn't go far because there really wasn't much wind. Showers and then to manicure and pedicure (yes, both of us). To one-on-one tennis for grueling workout I watched my husband enjoy. Dinner reservations at Japanese again and our last moonlit walk on the beach. Talent night revealed the tennis pro has singing talents too. I was unusually victorious in some games during the day. Found a few more spots sunscreen missed.

Vacation Memories - Day 3 & 4

Day 3
Woke up without an clock. Tennis for beginners with Paul. Breakfast buffet, tour, sand volleyball then swim suit. Learn to sail a Hobie catamaran. Beach Party...Food is good but dessert not too exciting. Learning to avert eyes when passing clothing optional beach.

Day 4
Start off with tennis again and liking (included) instruction. Then breakfast buffet and off to beach for some reading. Had enough rain drops to have to move Canasta inside. Japanese hibachi for dinner - yum. Learn clothing optional crowd is mostly over 50.

Vacation Memories - Day 1 & 2

Day 1
Packing. A trip to Target and some new reading material while shopping in suburbia. A yummy diner from grandma and instructions exchanged. Kisses good-bye at bedtime.

Day 2
Early alarm and not too much sleep because of anticipation. STL, BNL, MIA, MBJ - departure location to arrival location 17 hours. Accommodation exceeds expectation especially after harried 80 kilometer transfer. Ordered room service as our first taste of all-inclusive.