The thaw begins . . .

Finally, after days of snow we are thawing out!! How nice to be able to get out of the house again and just go to the store without fearing for your life. The neighborhood streets are still snowy and icy in alot of spots but the main roads are good. There is tons of gravel everywhere, now the job of sweeping all of that stuff up begins.

Well, our Christmas holiday was fantastic!! We weren't able to attend church services on Christmas eve like we normally do because of the snow, which my hubby and son gave a collective "oh darn" sigh too. I guess that you don't have to be "in a church" to give thanks and besides God wouldn't want us risking our lives to get there just for the atmosphere and communion, we can reflect on all that's wonderful in our lives in our own way, which we did/do?. On Christmas eve afternoon we gathered again for lefsa making, this time at Blake and Diane's house with a new technique, and on the BBQ grill method, which worked great. It is hard as the family grows for everybody to coordinate their schedules so at least a part of the day can be spent all together on Christmas. We were very fortunate this year that Josh, Dani, Brayden, Chad, Nicole and Lucas, Andy and Grama Howson were all able to come over on Christmas morning. After opening gifts here we headed to the Boyles house in the evening for a fabulous turkey/ham dinner and more gift exchanges. Brayden and Lucas were SO good for being up all day with hardly any naps due to all of the excitement. I think all of us that went home that night were exhausted. Then, it was a surprise party for Chad on Friday night with Dale keeping him out all afternoon shoveling snow (the decoy) at the two Grandma's house's. Poor guy he was so tired when he walked into his house when we all yelled SURPRISE!!, I didn't know if he would make it through the evening, but he did and Nicole got him good, he had no idea. Last night was a trip to the Blazers game vs. the Toronto Raptors, We had planned a couple months ago for a family night at the game. It was alot of fun and YES!! the Blazers won the game with Brandon Roy and Greg Oden having an awesome 4th quarter, the crowd was really into it and since they scored over 100 points . . YES!!! it was also FREE CHALUPAS from Taco Bell for everybody . . yippeee!!! It was a great holiday and today I am a vegetable on the couch. Except for a brief trip to Best Buy, Dale and I decided for our gift to each other we would buy a BluRay DVD player since our player was having problems. So I am laying here watching him try to figure out how to connect it all together, I am learning some new cuss words and hearing a comment about needing to go back to the store to get a cable that is required for maximum picture quality. . So perhaps I will take a little snooze while he goes to yell at somebody at the store.. . poor soul.