The ADK, Thanksgiving & Pine Cone Ornaments

We are full into the hustle and bustle of the Holiday season and I couldn't be more excited!

We've had a full four day 'vacation' and it's been absolutely wonderful. 

 

Every year we travel about 3 hrs to see my parents in their

sleepy little town of Homer NY. It's a great trip spending time with family
and enjoying the beginning of the Christmas season.

John 10:10

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may 

have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows) 

I am so blessed. I have good health, a good family, a reliable car, a warm place to sleep at night, 

more than enough food to eat (and share!), clothes on my body, a great job, and a bright, bright 

future. If God hadn't done any more than save my soul I would be grateful - but He chose to bless

me with all this much more, and I can't express how grateful I am to Him.

We arrived in Homer around 1:30 and dinner preparations were well on their way. This is my Mom, Andrea. Mom was in the kitchen getting the potatos, sweet potatos and vegetables ready. My mom is a dish queen. If there is a single dish in the house, she will hunt it down and wash it immediately. Even if there are no dishes to be found, she will find a dish, and wash it because some days it seems like her life mission.

 I might be guilty of that as well... 

turkey for you, turkey for me :)

mmm thanksgiving... I am seriously stuffed from an awesome turkey dinner. Of course, every year my mother decides we must have dinner late. I'm not sure why? There's never any time left later to have pie, or dessert, or even play a game... but she always does it!

Anyway dinner was served at 7. We were sooo hungry! Everyone ate in mostly silence, and then we all talked right when we'd finished eating...lol Zoey told us all about her school and the "work shelf". Tye and Meech and Jay shared memories of their schools - Tye's kumbaya hippy stories from THS, and Jay sharing about 'drills' at MCS.

mmm dinner. soo yummy. I love that I don't have to cook, and that mom does all the cleanup. Don't get me wrong, I try to help. But she has a specific way of putting everything away, and how she wants it all done... it's better to stay out of the way. I guess I'm kinda like that in my kitchen too :)

So what am I thankful for? The list is plentiful! No pun intended...

A safe roof over my head
A loving family
A stable income
A good church
A great church family
A great kid
Great pets
Many Great Friends :)

I'm grateful to God for his purpose and plans for my life. Thankful He's so good to me - and I can't wait to see what this Season of my life has in store for me!

Today... we go home.

I hate going home. I hate leaving. I miss my mom when I'm not here. But, home I must go. I have work, and a house, and 3 kitties who are probably beside themselves in lonely... We had a full weekend. Five full days. Holidays, shopping, sight seeing, and visiting family. Yesterday we went to see my Aunt Kathy & Uncle Bob, her daughter Dawn and Dawn's 3 kiddos, Danny, Kathy and Victoria (Tori for short). It was awesome. But today... it's all done and Ty and I will shuffle off to Buffalo to resume life as we know it. Hopefully we'll get home early enough to get the tree stuff out and get the decorating done. I'm looking forward to that! :) Here are a few more pics from the weekend - First - Candy Cane wars. I believe Tyler was the clear winner in THIS fencing match!

I'm sitting here listening to my son's tummy growling big time while he sleeps. It's going nuts. I wonder if it's going to wake him up? I'd have thought he'd be up by now because it's sooo loud!

This is my mom's tree. She puts up 2 - one real one, and one fake one. The real one is put in her ADK room (Adirondack) and has all sorts of woodsie type ornaments and things. I told her the fake one is suffering and will need a lot more ornaments - it's practically naked!

As you can tell I'm really enjoying my new camera. I believe I've taken close to 200 pictures this weekend. The camera is amazing. It takes moving shots, it takes dark shots, It lets me record sound bites on the pictures (Which is going to come in SO handy for Hockey!). It has so many neat little features I can't wait to sit down with the book and go thru it.

Well that's really it. I'm going to make some pancakes, and then hit the showers so I can hit the road Jack!

See you back in the B-lo!

We are home...

We had such a long day today. We left the house
around 9:15 and headed out to the Adirondacks, which is about a 2 1/2 hr drive from my mom's. We drove thru a myriad of little towns, villages and hamlets. It was a bit tedious, not really knowing where we were going, sitting in the back seat and having no real idea of the time frame. Doug was great and told me lots of neat history around the towns we were in while we drove. Also - once we hit the actual Adirondacks, I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures. Really cool is that I can actually take pictures now while the car is moving, and they come out AWESOME.



My mom and Doug took me to their favorite place in the Adirondacks - Long Lake. There is this cool Country Store (Hoss's) that Doug jokes about being the "Mall" because they have a bunch of little cottages behind the store, a pizzeria, a christmas store, an Art store... and some other things. It's kinda funny!

We left Long Lake and headed back up to Old Forge (there is ONE road to get in and out of these places) and on the way back into Old Forge, we encountered some of the locals.... lol These deer didn't even budge. My mom rolled down her window to take pictures (This was taken out of the front windshield) and they didn't even move. I'm sure they would have wanted food! LOL
Of course, no Christmas in the country adventure is complete unless you meet Santa or Mrs. Santa! Mom and I were so lucky when a man walked by and offered to take our picture together with Mrs. Clause. We saw reindeer too, but short of sharing all the pictures we took with you - These are a couple of my favourites :)
We picked up some treasures too. I got a cute little snowman ornament where the Snowman is holding ornaments in his hands, balancing one on his head and even hanging one from his nose. He's too cute! the other one says "please refreeze". I got a larger wooden ornament for the wall that says "When you stop believing in Santa, you get underwear!" I loved it since while I don't "Believe" in Santa.... I do believe in the magical time of Christmas- and honestly Santa is a big part of that... sooo I guess I do believe in Santa.

Anyway - that was our day - thanks for letting me share - and I'll talk to you later!

Some news to share! Well as you all know I am at moms. And if you're either a CTMH sistah, or a good friend of mine, then you know that we went shopping today for Black Friday. And well, aside from the HORRIFIC tragedy in Long Island, (more on THAT topic later - SHAME on you America!) we had a relatively uneventful day. However, Mom cleaned up on Black Friday specials, got ALL her christmas shopping done, and a little bit more...

Did anyone happen to catch the great sale Walmart was having on Digital camera's? Well, mom and I did, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that there were QUITE A FEW left of the particular camera we were looking for. The Kodak EasyShare ZD8612. YES Sir-eee I got a new camera for a mint of a price! YAY! I'm so thrilled. Mom and I now have matching Cameras. It's sooo awesome. 8.1 megapixels, and 12x zoom... I have so much to learn to play with this camera.. I think I'll be taking pics everywhere!

To celebrate - I'll show you the first pics I took, which is the project Rachele so graciously shared with me - and that I had to run out and make myself. I'm not sure what Rachele called this - other than Candy Cane Christmas, but I call it a Christmas Topiary, my mom calls it a Christmas Kissing ball. She's not overly thrilled with it, but I am! It was TIME consuming, I think it took me 5 hrs all said and done to put it together. I found a bottle of glittered snow that I put around the edge of the tin, and on the handles a bit. When that dries, I'll add the peppermints to it the way Rachele did. I'm really pleased with it - soon I'll figure out how to take better pictures of it and then you can see it much better. Anyway - just thought I'd post a bit of an update! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We're heading down to Old Forge tomorrow for an Adirondack Christmas which I'm really looking forward to :) Catch up when we get back!

being up late

or early in this case... is very bad for the wallet's health. My wish list is long, long and long...*sigh*

Since I am at mom's and can't sleep.... my little brother's room is horribly hot - I'm cruising the long long long list of blogs I haven't had a chance to see in well over a month and I'm checkin out artwork for inspiration for christmas cards. I'm going super basic this year... so I didn't bring a lot of 'stuff' with me to mom's to do them - but hey it doesn't hurt to pick up some ideas while I'm awake right?
Anywho - one of the most favorite lines of stamps that I wish I could purchase right now is MFT (My favorite things) - they just have such a cool 'insight' and their designs are real, and fresh. Love them! Well, while catching up on a 'blog' hop - they featured a while ago, I stumbled across this totally awesome set which is SO appropriate for me (Are ya feelin me Kari?) and my CTMH gal pals...

Who's that E-Girl is only $15.95 - not bad pricing for so many stamps, and what an awesome set! Love it! I might just have to splurge on this one as a B-day present for me :)

Enjoy!

Riley vs the Hot Pepper

Heres a fun little memory from mom's last weekend. My nephew Riley was being mr. tough guy and was eating some of Doug's really hot peppers! YIKES. He wasn't tough for too long though -after about a minute the heat caught up to him :)

enjoy!