It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas…

It has been another week of bad weather for us. It has been kind of strange because mostly the bad weather hits over the weekend and then hangs on for another day or so. School did delay 2 hours last Tuesday, but unlike the teachers at Concord schools, the Elkhart teachers, which is where Emma's mom works, still have to go in at the same time even when school is delayed. How crazy is that?? So I still had Emma at regular time, but had Braden early that day since his preschool was closed.

Last Thursday night we went to an awesome program with Mom, Dad, & Grandma at a church in Plymouth. It is called the Festival of Lights and they have the whole sanctuary covered with lights...from the ceilings to the walls and everywhere else. Then they have them "dancing" along with the music. This is the 2nd time we have gone to this program and we really enjoyed it. A really cool thing...my very best friend from high school, Marica Clark, (now Branch), who was the maid of honor in our wedding now attends that church, (her husband is one of the assistant pastors there), and I got to see her. This is the first time I have seen her in a whole lotta years and it was so nice to get in touch with her again.

Friday night once again both of the boys worked concession stand for the basketball game and this time Mark and I went to our Sunday school Christmas party. We met at church, had a nice meal and then did a white elephant gift exchange. It is fun, but sometimes the presents end up being more dumb than fun. I ended up with a day-by-day calendar of 365 Paper airplanes and Mark ended up with a box of chocolate covered cherries with two reindeer headband things.

Saturday morning I had an ABF Breakfast at Esther's home. I was supposed to make muffins Friday afternoon, but didn't get to them before we left for the party so ended up baking them at about 11PM Friday night. That is definitely the latest I have ever baked anything. Our brunch was very nice, but I woke up to a lot of snow so wasn't sure how the roads were going to be, but they were okay. After the brunch, I ran over to Walmart to pick up some photos and do some stocking stuffer shopping. I didn't have much shopping time as we had to be a church Saturday afternoon at 2PM for a leader's meeting and TI skit tryouts/practice. Saturday night we had the WOL Christmas party which was a progressive dinner. However, as the day progressed the weather kept getting worse and worse. Pastor Ray went with us and drove the church van and I was sure glad that I wasn't driving! We went to 4 homes for part of our meal…the Shira's for appetizers, the Zentsen's for salad, the Arko's for the main dish and Pastor and Nancy's for dessert, games and a gift exchange. Our food at every stop was excellent and at the Arko's we even got their son, Titus to play Christmas carols on the piano for us. By the time our party was over, there was quite a bit of snow on the ground and it was still coming down. Pastor said he wouldn't cancel church though unless it got much worse…….

Well…it did….get much worse! ;) We woke up Sunday morning and at first glance it didn't look like that much worse, but it was and when Mark checked the WFRN web site, sure enough McCoy had cancelled all services for Sunday. Honestly, I was quite shocked, but I do think it was a good idea. By mid morning almost all of the area churches had cancelled and Mayor Miller even declared the city a state of emergency. I am not sure how much snow we ended up with but it was close to 10 inches, I am sure. It ended up being a lazy Sunday. I made a fire in the fireplace and sat in the front room most of the day working on some Christmas projects, reading or doing things on my computer. By early evening almost all of the area schools had postponed 2 hours as we were supposed to get a lot of drifting over night. I don't think it drifted as bad as they thought, but it was still best to not have those buses out so early.

Monday morning we did a shortened day of school and when Adam left to go to work, Jared and I left to go to South Bend shopping. Thankfully, by this time the roads were pretty much cleared. We went to Erskine Commons which is where Scottsdale Mall used to be. We got bunches of shopping done and can say that I only have a few more last minute things to get done. I had put a rolled rump roast in the crock pot so that was ready for us when we got home and after dinner, Adam, Jared and I got almost all of the gifts wrapped that weren't for our immediate family.

Tonight Mark and Adam are finishing up shopping for me and Jared I got all of Mark's things wrapped while they were gone. They still aren't home yet, in fact, so it is pretty peaceful here. HA! Jared is off doing something with his IPod and Tucker is curled up in a pile of blankets on the couch in front of me.

Jean has taken another turn again. I got an e-mail from Julie today that said that they had to put Jean on oxygen and that they could only get it up to 80% or so. The hospice nurse really feels that this time she is truly nearing the end and thinks it may be only a couple of days. Jay called me tonight to say that she is still hanging on, but there was no improvement over the day. Not that any time is a good time for something like this, but so close to Christmas has to make it harder on Julie and her sisters.

Hopefully, I will get here to post again before Christmas, but we have another full weekend of course, so we will see how things go. Here is a quick rundown of our schedule.

Saturday: Shopping with Lori and then doing the annual Springer/Martin Christmas that evening.

Sunday: Church and then going down to my mom & dad's to celebrate Christmas with them.

Monday, Christmas Eve: Adam has to work until 4:00, so we will most likely stay home, prepare all of the goodies for the evening, go to the Christmas Eve service and then come home to do our gifts.

Tuesday, Christmas Day: going down to Mark & Linda's for the day.