Will flies home today and I'm excited but will be nervous until he is safely home. He has two layovers and a border to cross. My child will be wandering alone, save for Jesus and his guardian angels, around the Detroit and Toronto airport. Prayers, please, that all goes well!!
While he wraps up exam week, I continue with Christmas baking and making treats none of our waistlines need - haha! I've been enjoying the Pioneer Woman and Jamie Oliver Christmas specials on the Food Network lately. I'm also a sucker for the Hallmark Christmas movies that are always sure to have a happy ending!
Zanna is busy wrapping up her last week of home school among all the other activities going on in her life. She has also been very serious about the memory work she has for the Christmas Eve church service. I've overheard her practicing her lines in the shower, in the kitchen while preparing her breakfast toast, in the back seat of the car and at various times on the couch. She's also been diligent in practicing her violin pieces that we'll be playing together for Christmas Day. The girl is self driven and motivated! She definitely gets nervous but ultimately thrives under pressure. Wish I was like that ...;)
And in case you're wondering - the new Christmas tree lights are a HIT!!! I love them as much as I could love lights. My quest for tree lights are over and I can bask in the soft glow of warm, real non-LED lights!!
The only thing left to do is for Will to come home and put his ornaments on the tree:)
Praying you have a blessed Advent season as together we eagerly anticipate the coming of our Lord - His first coming long ago as a baby born in a manger, His second coming as we wait for that final day and how He continues to come in both Word and Sacrament, filling us up and sustaining our faith! Joy to the World, the Lord has come!
Oh, how I've missed being here! In the last few weeks, I must have started a dozen posts in my head, eager to get back to this space.
First off if you're a regular reader you may have noticed I'm not doing an Advent book club this year. Always one that hates to disappoint even one person, I agonized over this but finally had to let it go. I hadn't come across a book that particularly inspired me. But more than that, I have been working on writing my own study and had hoped there would be enough content ready by Advent. This is where the bulk of my writing, creativity and theological brainwork has been directed lately and I am exhausted. I only pray the finished product will somehow be a blessing to anyone that may come across it. Prayers, please as I continue work on this. If nothing else I'm learning and growing and that is truly a blessing!! And if anyone reading this happens to know how to format an ebook from Pages, feel free to share your knowledge.
We recently got back from our 3rd annual trip to the States for American Thanksgiving. I LOVE being back in my home country, being united with my family - Will, my parents and my grandparents - trips to Target, Hobby Lobby, big American malls all decked out for Christmas, and my fill of restaurants found only south of the US/Canada border - PF Changs, Cracker Barrel, and small town Wisconsin establishments that serve fried cheese curds, battered fish on a Friday night, and other various comfort foods smothered with cheese. Ahhhhh, so much to be thankful for!
This trip was different in that we didn't stay in a hotel one single time. We're on this kick of contacting people and inviting ourselves over. We're on a roll. Prepare to be contacted.
Especially if you're listed in the WELS yearbook.
This tactic requires guts and the possibility of rejection. But you never know until you try and the prospect of saving $100 a night and keeping points on our card for Will's plane tickets home is worth the humility. Plus it's nice to have a conversation at the end of a day with people that you haven't just spent all day in a car with. Not that I don't love my people, but conversation gets a little rough after the first 10 hours. I'm just sayin'.
Our new tactic was a great success and we made some new friends (friends of friends) and friends we got to know better. For our evening in Michigan with complete strangers, we played a game of Ticket to Ride. It was embarrassing, actually. I don't do well after 8pm and on top of that, there's something about sitting in a car all day that is ABSOLUTELY EXHAUSTING. So to require me to think strategy much less hold a conversation after the hour I turn back into a pumpkin does not make for impressing new people. But I trudged through and mumbled excuses while trying to hide my pathetic yawns ... until the end of the game when all was said and done and I had WON!!!! They may have very well thought this charade was all part of my master plan to take them down. I hope they have us again!
I hate our car trips but I secretly love them. I hate to love them.
The packing and planning of outfits
The snacks to bring
The gifts to share
The copious stops at Tim Hortons
The podcasts: Issues, etc , The Washington Post Presidential series, Vinyl Cafe stories
Sirius XM: Fox News, the Holly channel
Using my cute Vera Bradley travel bag
Our stop at the first Target in our path - Marquette, Michigan
Figuring out which passports to use like we're Jason Bourne
Confession: I am slightly obsessed with finding the perfect Christmas tree lights. It has been an elusive goal since 2004 when our original lights bit the dust. Since then we've been through mini multi-coloured lights, LED lights, and different mini multi-coloured lights. The LED were a huge debacle. I hated them. If I'm driving through a neighbourhood of lights at night, I am like Jekyll and Hyde. LED's make me mad and regular ones make me happy. I can't explain it but that's what happens! So to have LEDs on my tree in my house is setting us all up for a crazy Christmas. That year was the start of the LED kick and the stores around here only sold them that season and not any normal, soft and happy lights. As a matter of fact, let's not go there. So after that nightmare, stores brought back the normal ones (maybe due to the heightened numbers of household disturbance calls) and we went back to regular, mini multi-coloured. But not yet being content with the light situation, I came close to purchasing some different ones last year at Target but didn't. They were adorable and in retrospect I was kicking myself.
They were back this year! Now we have nine boxes.
So here's hoping that this is the magic maker. Wayne sure hopes so; God bless him for putting up with me.
Thanksgiving was a delightful day of feasting, snowy scenes from the picture windows, and memories made from the likes of Norman Rockwell paintings. "A Muppet Christmas Carol" viewing was involved along with family favourite "Home Alone".
We were also out there in the big city of Rhinelander for Black Friday. There were deals to be had and we aimed to find them! And find them we did. We're not idiots, though. While the rest of us shopped, Dad signed up for a Kohl's card and got a voucher to skip the line that snaked through the WHOLE STORE and got us checked out at customer service (no line) along with an extra 25% off. I don't just get my mad shopping savvy from my mother but my dad has got it going on, too. We're a force to be reckoned with I tell you. Poor Wayne.
Being with Will was fantastic and the almost 4 month separation was noticeable in the inch he had grown. Just short of 6 feet, he's sure to at least be as tall as his Uncle Reid and Uncle Jeff.
I had bought each of the kids their own little LEGO Thanksgiving kit. Will wasn't interested in doing any of the colouring I had brought but he's still a sucker for LEGO. I have to take what I can get.
And while I can't take a picture of every memory or moment made these days, I hope to remember the kids playing cards together in the back seat and at restaurants as they waited for their food to arrive. I'll remember sitting in church together, all 4 of us, along with my parents and grandparents as the first Advent candle was lit at the front. I'll remember piling on the couch - a mess of arms and legs and elbows - and watching "Miracle on 34th Street" as a family. I'll remember sitting at Grandpa and Grandma's kitchen table and talking about heaven with my almost 91 year old Grandpa who's excited that his failing sight will be returned on the other side of eternity.
Saying goodbye to Will is never fun but much easier knowing he comes home in a few weeks! My mother-in-law is also coming and I am looking forward to going from a house of relatively three quiet people to the bustle and extra noise of 5. I can't wait to get menu planning and cookie making and filling the stomachs of my loved ones!
Our church had our 4th annual Advent by Candlelight last weekend and as usual it was lovely. I brought my big ole' camera along and everything but forgot to take one single picture. Oh, well. More to try to remember in my brain. But there was plenty of candlelight, lots to eat, and hymns to sing as we listened to different readers depict Jesus' mother, Mary, in the program "A Mother Remembers".
I'm missing my Advent study this year even though it took me so much time and energy. It forced me to be in the Word at the busiest time of year. There's something to be said for that!! Lately I have been enjoying Love Rules: A Study of the Ten Commandments and it has been fantastic. Maybe even blog book club worthy someday?
The Christmas tunes are playing loud in my house and my new favourite is A Celtic Family Christmas - Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy. I dare you to listen to it without stomping your feet! I had noticed in the fall they were touring and making an Ottawa stop at Christmastime. My dream was for us to go but by the time we went to get tickets it was too picked over. I was crushed!!! So listening to this will have to do and it is so wonderful!!!
Other than the tree, the house is decorated and I'm loving all the twinkling lights. I'll try to take some pictures and take you on a tour around my house. For now, I'll leave you with Graceland. And in case you're wondering, those trees flash on and off. Elvis was awesome but tacky.
