Making Gingerbread Houses!

Acting serious.

Nana Tricking People!

Here are some videos of Nana tricking different family members... What she does it sneakily takes a video and the star of the show thinks it's a picture. They stand there, smiling, waiting for the shutter to click, while they get impatient and tired of smiling! The one of my aunt and uncle is the best!

Confabulations!

Ok... Wow! Looking back it’s been since about the first week in November that I’ve really sat down to fill you in on the happenings of my life in the middle of no where… The last few months I really haven’t got out of the house that much; been shut up indoors. With the coming of winter, and out lowest temperature a couple nights ago of between 0F and 9F, school work, and whatnot I just don’t have the same motivation to go out. I used to enjoy going out to the back hammock and swing, but after leaving it out there in our beating sun the ropes are worn and one is broken. And I mean, what’s the point of getting bundled up just to go outside to make a phone call. I’ve found a better resort, though it takes a few extra minutes. This may sound weird, but I’ve figured out that I can pick up a better cell service (than my own service; Extended Network) underneath the bed. So if I lay on the floor with the phone under the bed for a few seconds or minutes I can make a phone call with a perfectly fine conversation! Anyway, yeah! So our church had it’s Home on the Range party back on Veteran’s Day! It went well! We had a 3-legged race, musical hay bales, a hayride complete with country/folk/hayride-type songs, bonfire with S’mores, oh so good food!, and extravagant socialization. An all in all fun time! And I’m still baking cookies and selling them at Dad’s work. Not as often as I was in the summer, because school just keeps me so tightly tied up sometimes it’s just not humanely possible. And we had some friends of ours pass through on their way through our area. It was nice getting to know them better! I enjoyed it immensely! And Nana flew in, so we could all travel together up to CO for the greatest time of the year that we all look forward to with smiles on our faces-THANKSGIVING! I could just literally write pages and pages of my experiences (from this year alone) and not stop jabbering for a single breath! I think will save that for a post of it’s own. Coming up next! (with hopefully no delay between it and this post) And I could also devote a whole post to the events of seeing my bestest friend! But I think I won't babble on about it, just the main parts, if you would be so kind to allow me! My best friend's dad has had some health problems (as most of you probably know) that has caused them to move from the beautiful country/area they lived in to come back to the warm and drier climate. Unfortunately they had to leave friends, but much to my delight, they will be living only hours away and are currently in town through the holidays! I talk to her “all” the time, and knew that I would be seeing her in a couple days (this was a couple weeks ago), but I don’t think I realized that I WOULD SEE her! Then we were at church the morning I was supposed to see her, helping my dad set up the sound system… When I looked out into the lobby and saw this person and was like “who is that?”. My eyes did a double-check, I dropped everything I was doing (literally), and ran through the sanctuary and gave her the biggest hug ever. My eyes were so blurred with tears I could see (hardly AT ALL) for a couple minutes. That moment I think surpassed the excitement and gladness of Thanksgiving even! I hadn’t seen her in a year and a half… too long is another way to put it! It was WONDERFUL to see her! Talking on the phone doesn’t justify a friendship. I mean it’s great when that’s all you’ve got, but to see your friend is just, well for me, the happiest moment of my life! I want all of you to know, that you’re each dear to me and I hold you in a special place in my heart! For a while I didn’t have any friends (with the exception of one or two long distant friends), and now I see that they are an essential part of life! They uplift you, encourage, bring joy and laughter to you, too much laughter that you hurt so bad or wet your pants. So I’ve just got to say that I love each and everyone of you! Life is short, cherish those around you, for you know not much time is left on this earth. Make each moment memorable and remember those that are! Ok, then I spent the whole day with her and the weekend as well! To stay up late and talk, that’s something I don’t think we’d ever done. lol Growing up I could never stay awake past 10 p.m. and it would drive her nuts because she wanted to stay up and talk and watch a movie or whatever. Well this time we both stayed awake until past midnight, I believe, and actually it was her that fell asleep first, while I was talking... Oh well! At least I did my part! lol And I got to spend the next weekend with her as well and will see her a couple times more after the holidays! :D Oh my! I just thought of something! When she was here at my house a week ago, we watched some old home videos of her and I (and her sister and mine as well when they were 4 and 5 or 6) when we were 9! It was so hilarious! We literally laughed until our stomachs ached! It was a cooking show that we made up where we very informatively presented how to make fruit smoothies/ice cream with the Champion Juicer. According to her, “I talk too much…” because I went on and on about which fruits we were putting in now. But of course Jazmine did talking of her own, such as “This is really good!” That was her favorite line and she must’ve repeated it near 5 times throughout the episode. We were quite nuts, and dorks back then and am just glad for the memories I treasure with my friends and family throughout the past years! My face is all smiles right now!!!! And I don’t want to stop smiling, but some of my other great friends are moving to NC from TX! Boo-hoo! They move in 3 weeks! They’ll be farther but we’ll still talk as much as ever of course. (Which lately we haven’t talked much, and I apologize!) I still have photos for sale, online. I had 32/56 or some big amount like that accepted a while back and then the next batch I had 0/30. I have 116 pictures for sale now, but after have so many rejected at once I kind of lost hope. I will be getting back into trying to sell more after the bustle of the holidays. If you haven’t seen any of my latest photos, look back to some posts around Thanksgiving or the post before last. The snow we’ve had lately has been so pretty! We still have quite a bit in patches here and there throughout the yard. The last few days have been extremely cold, down to the single digits at night (I think) and not above 35F during the day. “Brr!” is right! As you probably know, we now have the house all decorated (and have for 2 weeks now) and it looks lovely! Oh, that is with the exception that I still have the annual/daily battle of the Christmas lights. The hassles of living in an adobe/stucco home! You don’t have wood trimming around the windows like a regular home… So I have to tape the lights on the inside of the windows with packing tape. And almost every day they fall down… Here lately I’ve given up because they don’t stay up long enough to make it worth while. Thankfully there is wood trim around the front door and I could put lights around our front post as well and the Christmas light-balls in two of our windows. And the few decorations of the interior, such as our pink bells, gingerbread men, 3 nativity sets (one of which was in Dad’s family when he was a boy), lights strung across the mantle, the little miniature town on the piano, our advent tree, stockings hanging over the fire, Christmas blankets and pillows on the couch, the table adorned in proper attire, and the festive greetings of cards from family and friends! School has been going well and I’m glad to announce I’m off for the holidays as of Friday! Tomorrow we’ll be running last minute errands and such, and then we head off to GYC the next morning and will return Christmas Eve. I’ve never been to GYC before, but have watched it on 3ABN for the past few years and have heard of all the wondrous stories of how it blessed those attending (and me watching it over tv as well). I will be sure to fill you in on my experience and share my story and insights about it with you when I get back! Christmas day we will be travelling up to visit Grandma, where 2 of Dad’s sisters and their husbands will be there as well. And will return home the following day. It should be nice, especially since we haven’t seen some of our family in quite some time. And I believe that concludes most of it! But stay tuned, a Thanksgiving special is coming up next. A bit belated I know, but hey it’s what’s happening. And I will try to get the lunatic videos up too soon, with the complete story and the rest of the story from Florida as well! And for all of you, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings! Please, listen to the song “Paper Angels” by Jimmy Wayne and remember those who are hurting and less fortunate these holidays and this winter. Pray for them and help those you are able to. God’s blessings! `cj`

Decorations All in Order

We just decorated the house! Unfortunately one of the boxes somehow had condensation in it. I opened it up in the shed to see if it was something that needed to go in, and heard this weird noise and looked and saw waterdroplets falling all over. "Yikes!" I thought and then took it inside. When I walked in the back door I told Mom that there was water in this box. I opened it up and oh my! Not just was there condensation on the lid, but everything in there had mold *_ALL_* over it! All the cardboard boxes that held the different decorations and whatnot were being to disentegrate and are ruined. Mommy imediately went to work cleaning it all up. One craftstick barn nativity set that I made back 8 years ago in Adventurers was completely covered in black mold and was rotted away. Most everything was recoverable but the santa, mrs. claus, and rudolph little stuff decorations that had mold on them and maybe a couple other things. Thankfully it was not the ornament box, or else, lots would have been lost. I have no clue how the moisture got in there, especially living in the desert and this past year being not too humid and very little precipitation. Maybe something was wet from the snow last winter and it just sat like that all year. It sure was extremely grossly covered, so it'd had a while to grow. Anywho. I'm almost done with school. I just have 2 biology experiments that I have to do here when Mommy goes and gets back from the gym. In the mean time I think I'm going to work on some of tomorrow's work because Daddy gets back from San Diego around 12:30 and picks up Jaz and will be home early! So I want to be able to be finished and relax before they get here! Well I better go for now! Ahh, so much to do! The house looks really nice though! Got everything except the tree and all it's decor up! I'll take pictures sometime! I got up early this morning and actually saw a really pretty sunrise! I haven't gotten up early enough for that in a long time! :D Ok, I really have to go! `cj` oh. p.s. when I was getting all the stuff out of the shed I had to move the 5 bikes out/out of my way to get to the back where the xmas stuff was. And when I moved one of the bikes out and bent over to use my fingers to put the kick stand down and had it in the wrong place at the wrong time and pinched my thumb really bad and have a pretty nasty blood blister on it. I've never had one before, and am not sure what to do. Luckily it's not in the direct path of everything, so it doesn't bug me. And it doesn't hurt that much at all, except when I apply pressure to it. So I'm going to have to look up what to do with it! lol do I pop it? eventually? let it heal? idk!