The Holiday Lull

The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas can either be way too busy or a nice lull to reflect on the the Christmas season. This year, we are spending our time reflecting. Chief made a beautiful Advent Wreath and bought a nice book of reflections for Advent. It is nice to have something common to our faiths to share and celebrate.

The Yeome.n are 4-5 so far this season, which is wonderful for them! They went into the two-week holiday break on a two game winning streak. This is awfully exciting for Snicks and his fellow coaches, as well as the team. The beauty of it is that this year's team has all been recruited by the current coaching staff - so it is the team they have been building and shaping over the past four seasons.

Snicks doing a post-game interview... you can hear him after most home games by going to the college's athletics website.

Chief finished 2009 with a pretty solid travel schedule. She eeked into Continental's silver elite status on her last trip and is feeling good about that accomplishment. Yes, it's a bit silly, but it makes her happy. She also had some nice gifts and estate expectancies in the past week that were fun to learn about and total over $100K. She has also been enjoying having fun hanging with the girls.

The girls at Herr.ick Jewelry's "Breakfast at He.rrick's" - sans Ms. Adams who was out sharing her beautiful voice with the Cleveland area.

The year did kind of end with a "bang". Unfortunately, it resulted in a dented Mazda and an unhappy Chief. A girl in the Wa.l-mart parking lot backed into our car. Poor C, she tries to avoid that place like the plague and was doing holiday shopping for a needy family. She even scolds Snicks when he goes there... lesson learned.

Merry Christmas to all of you! We hope that you are spending the holidays with those you love. Safe travels for those venturing away from home. To end, we went a little crazy with decorations this year... here are some pics of our decked-out halls.

C "planted" trees in our window boxes. The front window box died due to a strong wind :(

The tree, heavily laden with ornaments, including many from C's childhood. We now fully appreciate the tradition of getting an ornament each year.

Where your holiday card is hanging if we've received it...

Our purchase from this year's Festival of Trees. Ornaments are handmade from artists at a local retirement community.

C's tree that her parents gave her the year they moved to the TC and she lived with her favorite childhood babysitter!