Catching up

Some highlights from the past month or so that I haven’t been blogging

• Barbara, Joey, Robert and Dominic are taking piano and seem to be doing well
• Advent was good but crazy busy at times
• Sam’s family all came over for Christmas the Sunday before Christmas. 60+ people – surprisingly all the valuables still seem to be here
• Cecilia (Hunter) was in a pres-school CCD play. She was an Angel – a real stretch of her acting ability. She wanted to be a rock but that part was taken apparently. Sam directed said play.
• We always buy our tree on Christmas Eve (tradition and we are cheap). This year all the lots in town were out of trees by then. Almost went the fake tree route but the kids revolted. Found one a few towns over.
• Eric (The World’s Fattest Baby) pulled all the TV equipment off the shelves, broke the DVD player. Second one he has broken in the past 6 months
• The economy still stinks but my job is going well and we are hanging in there ok.
• Sam is getting new French doors that are desperately needed but not the second set of washers and dryers she covets. Hey I gave her a baby too – you can’t have everything. We are in a recession after all
• Alex (18) is home from college break and is sharing a room with Mary (5) and Cecilia (3). She doesn’t seem to thrilled that we gave away her room and she has to share with the little girls
• Caleb got his learners permit 2 months ago and is doing well learning how to drive
• Christmas day we went to 8am mass then spent the day at the grandparents. The big gift this year was a Wii from my brother and assortment of games and accessories for it from my dad and stepmom.
• My Christmas haul was mainly triathlon related stuff: Rollers for biking indoors (basically something to kill yourself on – google them), swim mp3 player (can listen to music underwater), Garmin GPS watch (can use it to tell how far and fast you have run), French Press (indirectly workout related since it lets me get caffeine into me in a tastier way), and an assortment of clothes.
• Josh is still at the seminary and wasn’t home for Christmas. We will go up and see him in April. Over New Years I took Joey, Robert and Dominic to NH for a retreat. We stopped for the night each way in CT at Josh’s seminary. We had dinner, morning mass and breakfast with him each time. He is happy and doing well.
• Lizzie is also doing well – probably because she has her own room (Alex’s old room)
• Barbara is babysitting a lot and has more money than God
• We currently have 11 rolls of toilet paper in the house, enough for 3...4 days tops - if we conserve. I'm planning on going to DC to ask congress for a bailout plan to get us some more TP.