New Year's Eve Snow Storm

Party @ Cheryl's Place

Tonight's party at Cheryl's place was much different than other parties at Cheryl's place for a few reasons:
- Different House
- Different Lake
- Different Attire (sweaters instead of bathing suits)

In fact, the only things recognizable about this party were the good friends and good time.

Cheers!

Seven Minutes of My Life I'll Never Get Back

stick figure movie

After I sat through this video I wondered how in the heck I got to it.

It started as I was throwing away the now-empty nostalgia candy box that came with Bruce's Claw candy grabber Christmas gift.

I googled candy of the 1960s and came across a website with all sorts of toys from the 60s.

That reminded me of a stuffed Baba Looie I had as a small child so I googled Baba Looie.

That led me to a video of a girl who hates Baba Looie. After her short video played, this stick figure movie came on and since I wanted to procrastinate a bit more before I start putting away the Christmas decorations, I dedicated seven minutes of my life to watching it.

How Much Longer Until Summer?

We woke to a fresh layer of snow today.

It didn't start snowing until about 11am, but since we're on vacation this week, we slept in.

One More Week of Christmas Lights

Living in the country was a lot easier than living in a subdivision.

In the country you don't have to rake your leaves. You simply let the wind carry them out into the fields.

In the country it doesn't matter how loud your dog barks.

In the country you can leave your Christmas lights up until the snow melts in the spring.

Here in suburbia, if you don't take your lights down by January 2, you become known as the hillbillies of the neighborhood.

Elkhart Farmers Market

Beautiful Christmas lights at the Elkhart Farmers Market. This incredible display caught my eye as I got off the bypass on our drive home from Indy tonight.

Family Christmas in Indy

This was our first Christmas spent in Indy at sister Laura's new home. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and visiting with family.

Spike's Road Trip

Cousin Dozer invited Spike to come down to Indianapolis for Christmas dinner with the whole family.

Spike was pretty excited because his normal road trips end at either the vet or the kennel.

We took a pit stop near Peru at the Grissom Air Museum where Spike and Bruce were able to check out this 1950s T-2C Buckeye Navy plane.



Spike also liked the YS-11.

Our Traditional Christmas Eve Dinner

This year, as we've done for the past several years, Bruce and I took Grandma to her favorite Chinese restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner.

After dinner, we drove through the Winding Brook subdivision to enjoy their display of Christmas lights.

Most homes in the neighborhood are decorated with bright and colorful light displays and blow-ups of Santa and Frosty.

This one stood out from the rest -- the actual sculpture in their yard is a bit out of focus in this photo, but check out the shadow it cast on their house.


We ended the evening with the candlelight Christmas service at the Osceola United Methodist church.

Perfect Christmas Gift

During our summer summit at Patoka Lake, Bruce spent about $30 in quarters winning nearly all of the stuffed animals in the Claw grab it machine.

For Christmas this year, friends David & Kelly from Evansville send him his own personal Claw grab it machine.


How perfect is that???


Merry Christmas D&K.

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner with Grandma, Gretchen, Jim and Kelly.

This is a rare moment when we were able to tear ourselves away from the food table and ham it up for the camera.

Happy Birthday David!

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

Frosty Lives in Elkhart

I didn't even realize we had children living in the neighborhood. Maybe this snowman just magically grew out of the neighbor's yard today.

You know... from the magic Christmas snow.

Lunch with Bruce Sr.

We had lunch with friends at Between the Buns in Osceola today and Mr. Buns, Phil, pointed out that our photos were still on the wall from their grand opening many years ago.

Bruce Jr. noticed a familiar face in one of the photo collages next to our table. It was his dad, Bruce Sr. What a wonderful coincidence... almost like he was joining us for a Christmas lunch.

Throwing Up Christmas

Every town has one... a house that is way overdecorated with the most hideous Christmas decorations.

I think it was my mother who coined the term "throwing up Christmas" as in, "Wow, looks like someone threw up Christmas on their front yard."

This beautiful display of Christmas vomit is on Mishawaka Road in Elkhart.

Holiday Cheer

It was nice to reconnect with Barb, my best friend from high school, over some frosty beverages at Hacienda.

Christmas Baking

This year's Christmas baking included:

• 30 dozen monster cookies
• peanut butter fudge
• chocolate fudge
• 60 pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate
• haystacks (nuts/Chinese noodles/white chocolate)
• 100 peanut butter-chocolate cups
• 30 dozen white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies
• Chex mix
• three pans of morsels from heaven

Facebook reunion

I received a Facebook friend hookup invite from a guy I went to kindergarten with.

Actually we went to the same high school, but I really don't remember him from high school. But, as soon as I saw his name, I remembered him as the cutest boy in my kindergarten class.

Spike Relaxes by the Fire

After playing in the snow, Spike needed to warm up his frozen paws by the fire.

Another Reason to Like Applebees

The Osceola Applebees now has waitress pagers on every table. Anytime you want your waitress to come to your table, you push the button and a watch-like-device on her wrist buzzes and displays a table number.

So, when your Brutis is running low and you need a refill.... just push the pager.

Cheryl's New House

My friend, Cheryl, moved into her new lake house today. This is the view from her front porch.

Can't wait for summer.

Lion Excapes Zoo... News at 11

Okay, so maybe he's not a lion, but he kinda looked like one to me. He was waiting for the full-service fill up at the pump next to me at the Marathon on Western Avenue @ Mayflower.

Thermal Bruce and Sharon

If you woke up one day with thermal imaging vision and ran into us; this is what you'd see.

This is a photo of us through the thermal imaging camera at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Star Wars in Chicago

The Star Wars exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry was a geek's delight.

Chicago in Style

Most of the South Bend office staff traveled to the company Christmas party in Chicago in a limo. Not sure, but I think there were 11 people squeezed into the stretch limo for the two-hour trip.

Bruce and I drove into Chicago ourselves because we planned to go to the Star Wars exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry on Sunday.

But, our hotel was not within walking distance to the restaurant so after the limo driver dropped off everyone at the party, he came to our hotel to pick us up for a private limo ride. Cool! We felt like rock stars.

SantaCon Chicago

While we were waiting for the limo to pick us up from our hotel in Chicago for the company Christmas party, we were nearly stampeded by a pack of Santas.

Turns out it was the start of SantaCon Chicago. It's an annual pub crawl that requires all participants to dress in full Santa suits.

Club Quarters, Chicago

We got a great deal on a room at Club Quarters through Price Line. The room even came with this incredible view of the Chicago river.

Check-in at the hotel was a bit stressful for me. Bruce went to give our car keys to the valet while I checked in. He was gone for a loooonnnnnngggg time.

When he didn't come back right away, I imagined that someone posing as the valet had knocked him out and stolen our van.

I asked the front-desk clerk to call the valet to ask what he did with my husband. Turns out the valet couldn't park our van because it was too tall for their parking garage. So, Bruce had to self-park at an outdoor parking lot.

Christmas Crunch

I love the Cap'n and was tempted to purchase his Christmas Crunch cereal. After calculating about how long it might take the roof of my mouth to heal after enjoying a bowl of his festive barbed wire, I decided to pass.

Our Christmas Card Photo

Runner up for this year's Christmas Card

I hate chatty flyers

Dear Bose,
You probably remember me, the girl in Elkhart, Indiana who bought your Quite Comfort 3 headphones this summer. Well, I thought I'd write to let you know how they're working out.

I probably didn't tell you when I placed the order on your website, but I chose your headphones because my extensive research showed them to be the best in reducing noise. And, boy did I have some noise that needed reducing this summer.

My across-the-street neighbor (the one who sits in her front yard to keep an eye out on the comings and goings of the neighborhood), got a puppy. She'd sit in her lawn chair, in her front yard, getting that puppy all worked up playing ball and chasing sticks. Now, this woman has a huge back yard and if she'd taken the dog to the back yard, I probably wouldn't have been able to hear the yapping. But, since the barking was happening in the front yard, not only did I hear it as it was happening, but I got bonus echo barking as the sound bounced off of the house behind me and came back. I have a huge problem with repetitive noises and decided my options were:
1) start a neighborhood feud between those who think barking puppies are wonderful and those who can't stand the barking,
2) miss out on the summer by staying inside to avoid the noise,
3) spend $350 on noise reduction headphones.

Long story even longer... I chose option three. I wore the headphones outside quite a bit this summer, got a nice tan, a great garden, and remained on good terms with the neighbor.

Now, I'll get to the point of my letter. I flew to North Carolina Tuesday and took the Bose QC3's with me, along with my MP3 player loaded with a new Jeff Lindsay book. I noticed that the headphones cut out all of the airplane noise. They also allowed me to hear my book without using the volume booster I bought at Radio Shack which nearly popped my eardrums on a flight last year.

But, your darned headphones did absolutely nothing to block out the chatty guys behind me on my flight from Cincinnati to Charlotte. I turned up the volume on my MP3 player as high as it would go, but I still couldn't escape their hour-long conversation about football stadium grass. I so wanted to turn around and scream, "Man I don't care!"

Your QC3 headphones also didn't block out the conversation between the English guy and the American gal behind me on my trip back last night. I heard every detail about his past three weeks of sightseeing as well as all of her suggestions on must-see tourist attractions.

I sure wish you'd add a bullet point about this shortcoming in your product specs so others, with my same hatred of chatty flyers, will know that spending $350 on your headphones won't provide the peaceful salvation they desperately need after one canceled flight, two delayed flights, a crashed hard drive and crappy airport food.

Your pal,

Sharon

Spike is not amused

Yesterday's snowfall was the first to stick and accumulate this season. Clearly, Spike is not amused.

I tried to get him to wear those doggie snow boots one winter. He did the high step for a while and then chewed them off.