O.K., SO I CRIED A LITTLE

Forty two years ago while walking down Larimer Street in Denver during the Christmas Season we happened upon a wonderful Christmas Ornament Store. We wanted to start the tradition of buying our children an ornament each year and then give the collection to them the first Christmas they were married so they would have ornaments for their tree. At that time we had two children and ended up having six. We are still giving ornaments and also give to the grandchildren. If possible the ornament commemorates something that happened to them in the past year

This is not the original but identical to the 1st one we bought our daughter that day. I found this one at a garage sale a few years ago and it reminds me each year anew of how a fun tradition started.

Our dog chewed this one.

Love my New York Ornaments
Talked my Mom out of one of the vintage ornaments off her tree. It's over 60 years old

The year we were blessed with Twin Grandchildren

Blown Glass from Venice-- never thought we would travel there.
It's always great to add a "Baby's First Christmas" ornament to the tree.

We will add 2 this year

We have delicate porcelain hand prints of Grandchildren

Favorite Sports Team Ornaments

Special Places

Favorite Movies - look'n a little washed out there Scarlett

Hand painted ones from good friends
But I think my favorites are the ones our children and grandchildren have

made and given to us when they were young.

Our Youngest Son and his Beautiful Bride bought their first Christmas Tree today

and ask if they could come up and get their ornaments.

Theirs was the last box to be given---

We love them all so much,

and Yes, I cried a little.

AUSTERITY SUCKS

O.K.- in an effort to do my part and try to scale down expenses in this dire economy I announced

that we would be 1. dropping premium cable channels. 2. use the cell phone only in an emergency in order to go from 950 minutes to 450 minutes a month. 3. drop the storage unit fee's and put the "junk" in half of the garage. Not my half, mind you, it's not my junk after all. 4. Try to group trips "off the hill" to less than 10 a day. No need to abuse the nice new price of gas.

5. And a personal best for me was - Use the Library- instead of buying books. Now in my defense, I usually only buy used books but that still does not excuse the amount of books that I must own. So the other day when I was in the library picking up a book tape for a short trip I plucked two interesting books off the "New Reads" shelf. Turns out the book below is by an author I haven't read before and I LOVE HER. I'm only about 30 pages in to it and already I know that I must own this book-- not only that, I must own the other 4 she has written-- but I will only buy used copies.

P.S. did I mention that when I do use the Library, the fines I rack up are usually enough to pay for the blooming book.

OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE W------

to Great-Grandmothers house we go. Children and grandchildren and great grand-children gathered to clean, rake, mow, prune, work on sprinkler system and patch large soft spot in roof of house. Really appreciate everyone's efforts and it looked so great when we left. Almost ready for winter.

Cute Nephew mowed and mowed and mowed-well you get the picture-- it's a large piece of property.

Our Dad loved this barn

Built in 1949--this was a fun place to grow up.

My sweet and Beautiful Sister-in-Law

This is what a GIANT Band-Aid on a roof looks like


Men and food-- just seems to go together.
It was a good day.