The GOOD of 2020 Year in Review

We all know what a weird year it has been.  So for this year in review, I'd like to tell you all the GOOD things that have happened this year. (in no particular order)

We got to go to Amsterdam before everything shut down! (one of my bucket list places!)

Fun girl/sister trip to Cabo!

We had a beautiful kitchen/bath/floor remodel

Lots of great aerial yoga classes with my sister!

Took a trip to North Carolina to see family!

My sister took me on an adventure course!  Terrifying but fun!!

So many fun concerts, outdoor music, hooping times!

I turned 49!!!😜

I learned a little bit of the ukulele!  So I can learn new things! haha!

Got to vacation in Dominican Republic!

I had my 2nd grandson born (my 4th grandchild)!

Many trips to go see grandkids!

So I guess it wasn't such a bad year after all!  Like the old song goes, "You've got to accent the positive and eliminate the negative and latch on to the affirmative and don't mess with mister in between." 🎵

Here's to a great 2021!!!!  

🎉🥳😘💗🙏

Lamentations 3:23-24 

"Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.They are new every morning;Great is Your faithfulness, “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,“Therefore I hope in Him!”

Couple more Christmas stories!

 Couple more Christmas stories...

Once when we were kids, we woke up Christmas morning to find 2 strings beside our bed.  We followed those strings around the whole house!  Under couches, under beds, through the backyard, under bushes, around trees, back into the house, down the hall, under doors, when we finally made it to the end.. there were 2 nice presents!  I think I got a stereo and my sister got a bike or vice versa...can't remember.  But I remember following that string around the house!  

Here's a fun one:

When we lived in Colorado one Christmas, my parents mailed the kid's gifts up to us.  We stuck them under the tree and waited for Christmas.  Larry came home that week and said, I have good news and I have bad news.  What you want first?  Me-bad news of course.  He said, I lost my job!  Yikes!  What's the good news (he's a glass full kinda guy)  We get to go to Texas for Christmas!   

So we packed up the car, and the unopened gifts that my parents had sent and made the 14+ hour drive down to Dallas for Christmas.  While we were here, we got to talking about what to do next since Larry was out of a job.  We decided, hey let's just move back to Texas!  We talked about it all the way home (put the presents that my parents had sent back in the car!)  By the time we got back to Colorado, we had decided! Yes we'd move back!  

FIVE days later we were packed up in a moving truck (along with those presents!  which at this point had gone from Texas to Colorado to Texas to Colorado and now back to Texas)  and off we went!  

It was the year of Y2K so, we waited till that morning to see if the world had ended and since it didn't, we drove down to Texas. :)

The Slim Christmas

 Another Christmas story....

Larry works contract a lot and it seems like in the past, right around Christmas, he'd get laid off.  So one Christmas, he lost his job and money was kinda tight.  I didn't know how I was going to get Christmas gifts for the kids.  They were big enough that they'd realize if I chinzed on Christmas... so what to do, what to do??

Well, I scoured the house for anything I could sell and had a huge garage sale!  I thought, whatever I made, I would use that for the kids' presents.

So after all the smoke cleared from the garage sale, I had a whopping $150.  

That was going to be tough to spread between 3 kids!

Somehow, I managed to find sales, bargains, and other such treasures and got things wrapped.

It seemed like a skimpy Christmas and I needed something to make it more fun.

So I made a Scavenger Hunt for Christmas Day!  

I hid the presents all around the house and made clues for each and every gift.

Christmas morning came and we had the most fun!  The kids loved finding all their presents (almost more than the actual presents!)

It was a wonderful Christmas after all!

Reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas movies:

"He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!"

Christmas time is here

Christmas is one of my all time favorite holidays.  I have so many wonderful memories as a kid with my grandparents at Christmas.  

I'm going to share a few stories the next few blog posts about some of my favorite times.

We used to go to my grandparents for our Christmas break.  They lived about 2 hours away.  We would drive an hour and they would drive an hour.  We'd meet halfway at the Dairy Queen, grab some burgers and a dilly bar and load up in Mamaw and Pop's car and head to their house.

When we got there, the Christmas spirit would begin!  My mamaw would have several small wrapped presents for us to open each day heading towards Christmas.  Now, they weren't wealthy by any means.  But she would find the simplest little things and wrap them up.  I remember we'd always get a tiny Hallmark calendar (that you'd get for free at the store), and some pens, and just little trinkets that we thought were just divine.  My love language is gifts so it was especially nice for me!

Then Pop would say, let's go get a tree!  🎄We'd go in his back woods and us girls would want the biggest tree.  Pop would say, "How about this one (kind of a small sgraggly thing that he could actually drag back to the house)."  We'd get excited and bring it in.  Mamaw would put it in a nice pot and put it up on a table.

When we'd get to decorating!  We didn't have store bought decorations.  So we'd pop corn and string cranberries, make paper chains, and cut pictures out of magazines! It was the most beautiful tree!!

Christmas morning we'd wake up before the sun was even thinking of coming up! We wanted to  go open our presents so bad!  After several, "Go back to bed girls-it's too early!!", they'd finally relent and let us get up!

                                        

Paper and boxes would be flying as we opened all kinds of goodies!  My pop would put on a roaring fire in the fireplace (no matter if it was 80 degrees!) to burn all the paper and boxes.  We would always lose our instructions to the new games or pieces to stuff because Pop was cleaning up and throwing stuff in the fire just as fast as we could open it!  (hmmm, wonder where I get that cleaning bug from!)

Meanwhile, Mamaw was in the kitchen making everything yummy!  Little mini pecan pies, ham, fresh veggies, those rolls! Yummmy!!  

We'd all enjoy a nice meal, and play with our new stuff and enjoy each other's company. 

Lots of laughter and good times.