Tracy Phillips said:

 

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR.
THANKS TO EVERYONE HERE FOR BEING SUCH A WONDERFUL ONLINE COMMUNITY.

 

ksgrm said:

 

Tracy thank you for the invite and also for the hospitality when I came over.

 

Wendy said:

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Just stopped in to check on the mail before venturing out for some final errands. To all, Merry Christmas; Happy New year.

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Mrs. VT has had the pump removed, as the incision is just about fully healed! A couple of days of simple wetted gauze with tape, then at most a bandage over it. She's been released to work, all seems good.

Hope all had a good Christmas day. Ksgrm, I hope your grandson got in without complications and was able to spend some time with you.

 

Julie said:

 

Yay for Mrs. VT!!!!

MM is most likely going to be moving to an actual rehab facility soon. We're shooting for Wesley.

Mouse is really getting the hang of opening presents. One of Chick's presents really got Mouse's eye and she kept trying to get to it. She got it partially unwrapped and I saw what she was doing so I took it away and hid it underneath other presents. She started digging through the other presents so she could get at that one particular present for Chick.
I finally had to take it away and hide it in my room because she kept trying to unwrap it.

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Julie, good to hear that MM continues his progress. I hope your insurance plan will allow Wesley rehab.

On presents; we had a similar experience with Lindsay when she was a wee one, just getting into the whole opening thing; we were at Mrs. VT's sister's home, and Lindsay started opening everything she could crawl/toddle to, which created quite a stir with her sis, as well as her cousins. Great memories now; not so funny to the others back then.

Did I mention that both our girls were early walkers? First Christmas for both, they started to walk (basically at 9 months for both), which added to the excitement. My sister-in-law's family had a miniature Schnauzer that seemed to be the impetus for each of them to "let go and take off"; always felt sorry for the dog...

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Hope you bloggers are enjoying the snow that is falling today; seems the original forecast of snow only possible in the morning today was a bit off.

 

Wendy said:

 

Glad to hear everyone's holidays went well!

The monster is apparently OCD when it comes to opening gifts - he has to have EVERY LITTLE piece of paper and tape off of the box (or whatever it is he is opening) before he will actually open said box. Took about three hours to open presents Christmas day. And between that and the birthday (he will be 3 on Friday - oh wait that's tomorrow- oh my god how did that get here so fast!?!?!) he is opening gifts pretty much every day straight from last monday to next monday... YIKES!!! Our house is going to explode I think!

On the negative side, the fiancee got laid off yesterday morning. Seriously, the day after Christmas? They couldn't have waited a week to do that? Talk about a bad Christmas gift. So he is job hunting this week and well, as long as it takes to find a new job. I told him to go ahead and file for unemployment just in case he doesn't find something right away so at least we have a little income from his side, and luckily we have a little bit in various money markets and mutual funds and such so if we really get in a bind about the house payment (the only thing we can't cover on my paycheck alone) we can drag some money out of there, but we are hoping it won't come to that...

So who wants to take bets on how much snow we wind up with tonight? Last forecast I heard called for up to 7 inches... should be interesting. I bet we wind up with barely an inch... :)

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Wendy, that sucks; however, to me, a cold hearted bean counter by education, the timing makes sense; eliminate costs going into the next fiscal period. As a human being, my first comment stands.

On the snow, in my less than professional opinion, about four inches by the time it ends tomorrow morning.

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

BTW, speaking of snow, a quick look out my window tells me the overture has begun....

 

lindainks55 said:

 

I'm coming home waaay past my bedtime and it isn't snowing so I predict they're wrong on this one and we might have a dusting. In order to have the inches they predicted it would need to start snowing soon and snow heavily for the next few hours. Don't think it's gonna happen this time! Hooray!

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Well, according to the weather folks, officially got three inches of snow. It was the ice under the snow that made it interesting to drive in this morning.

 

Wendy said:

 

Vaughn,

the article i just glanced at on Kansas.com said 1 inch in the metro area.... that's about what we got at our house anyways... the fiance is terribly disappointed, he loves snow...

I am hoping things will start looking up. I am a bit worried about him - he is one of those people who tends to stew about things, and I can tell he is "off" the last two days - hardly talking at all, not shaving, he didn't even shower until like 3 pm yesterday - and he is a pretty fastidious person so that is out of character for him... he is hoping to possibly get on at one of the aircraft plants... has some good references on that front, and then has also put his app in several other places. I know he is scared and a little worried, as am I, neither one of us has ever been unemployed since the time we started working in high school, so it is intimidating, to say the least...

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Yeah, Wendy, saw that on kansas.com; prior post was based upon the 7:08 weather report on Channel 12, where the NWS was quoted as saying there was officially three inches of snow at the airport. At our place, it seemed we got 2 to 3 inches. I know; your mileage may vary. :-)

Good luck to your fiance in his job search. I'm sure he is apprehensive, and a bit depressed right now.

 

lindainks55 said:

 

My help arrived so I'll take a moment to say good morning.

Julie's beautiful daughters are spending the day here and we have been playing. We cooked, served, cooked and served some more. We've fed six dolls and put them down for a nap. My 10-year-old granddaughter has arrived to play with us now. Julie has absolutely terrific girls who are very well behaved! She is to be commended.

BTW, my prediction of a dusting seems closer to what we got here than the inches and inches those weather people were saying we would have! Don't suppose they would share their salary with me tho.

 

Rox said:

 

Wendy, I'll keep my fingers crossed for your fiance. I've heard there's some hiring at the airplane plants, so maybe he'll get grabbed right up for a spot.

Linda, sounds like you're having a lovely time!

I see the sun coming out and hope it will melt whatever amount of snow that fell here last night. I haven't gone out to measure. Couple of inches, maybe, in the slightly SE part of town?

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Well, the official "explanation" concerning the amount of snow not received despite the predictions is that the system moved about 50 miles North of the predicted path, resulting in the good people around McPherson receiving 5 to 6 inches, when they were forecast 2 to 4.

Linda, sounds like a good time will be had by all at your house today.

 

Julie said:

 

Glad you're having fun Linda! They are precious and precocious little girls.
I appreciate your watching them!

 

Wendy said:

 

Sounds like much fun! I sure hope the next one we have is a girl (AND that she is easier to potty train than the boy, as many have told me) although i wouldn't trade my little boy for anything. We get to brave Chuck E. Cheese tonight. I managed to pull a quick act on the monster. Today is his actual Bday and our custody agreement calls for us to 'share' today. So Daddy and I are taking him to Chuck E Cheese TODAY, and we will have his actual party tomorrow at my house... so I still have to deal with Chuck E Cheese, but on a much smaller, less stress-filed and much less costly scale.

By the way, the dog went over smashingly well - the two of them are crazy around each other, he wants to carry her everywhere and she just wants to be all over him all of the time... it's pretty cute, all in all...

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Julie, it gets better when "precious and precocious" little girls grow to adults. :-)

Had a very interesting, in depth, discussion with the younger last night. As I suspected, she's not intending to return to Kansas once college is done, at least in the longer term. She's evaluating various scenarios, and I suspect she'll end up somewhere in the East; not Massachusetts or Connecticut, however, given her protestations. I found it interesting that in relating stories concerning the friends with whom she shares her thoughts on politics, etc., the Kansas pragmatism and experience shines through. Folks, there are some that just don't get it in connection with why Mrs. Clinton, e.g., isn't a shoe in for President, the negatives associated with her especially around here, the suspicion that Mr. Giuliani draws, him being from New York and all, and on and on. Some of her tales concerning her conversations were so funny I was wiping tears of laughter before she finished.

I think she's done a good job convincing the New Englanders with whom she associates that Kansas has some semblance of civilization, and that real people live out here. While these good young people still think that in general, the edge of civilized society still ends at Ohio, they're not quite as sure of this as they once were. And, they have realized that not all females from Kansas have little dogs named Toto, etc.

 

lindainks55 said:

 

Shhhh. we are very asleep after playing ourselves into being very hungry followed by very tired.

Should have heard the original compositions when three girls were seated at the piano. Interesting. All was going fairly well until the sustain and loud pedals were shared. Then we stopped composing and moved to dressing up. Had a coronation! The crown slipped a tad but she was a beeeeautiful princess!

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Linda, want to trade places for the rest of the day? :-) What is happening at your place sounds a lot better than that with which I'm dealing here.

 

Wendy said:

 

Vaughn, agreed!

 

lindainks55 said:

 

Tracy is always saying this is "our" blog, but did you notice how very quiet we are when we know he isn't around?

The holidays are winding down and I think I'm ready to get back to whatever is normal and more routine. The decorations are starting to look a bit bedraggled, the trees never look quite as pretty after the packages are gone and everything needs a good cleaning so I must tackle putting away all the sparkles for another year.

I haven't been as faithful about walking with Ginger recently and when we walked this morning it showed! I tired more easily. Must get back into that routine SOON! The only way to ensure being able to move is to move. It does get more difficult with each year.

I miss all of you, hope your holidays have been very pleasant and I look forward to the time when we all visit again.

 

Wendy said:

 

Linda,

I did notice. However, in this instance, I don't know if it is so much that we know Tracy is gone, as that the holidays are just insanely busy for everyone and nobody has the time (or possibly inclination) to post on here during the madness. :) I know that is the case with me.

I too am ready for the holiday season to be over. Needless to say, this has not been one of the best holiday times for me this year. But I have faith that it will get better. I am not sure how, but I am trying valiantly to keep myself from stressing out about it. Especially since I was recently diagnosed as having recurring ocular migraines, which essentially causes blind spots in your vision (last time I couldn't see anything directly in front of me, just peripheral) which is pretty frightening, let me tell you. Well, according to my optometrist, they are stress induced. Lovely. :) Here's hoping the new year will be better than this one. of course, I know it will be, we are getting married in the spring and that will make it the best year yet!

 

Vaughn Tolle said:

 

Wendy, get the stress out of your life. That's an order. :-)

To all, have a safe and happy new year's celebration, and we'll see everyone back next year (on Wednesday).

 

Julie said:

 

Linda,
The girls (ok so Chick - since she's the one with the verbal skills) still talk about playing at your house! We've got our picture on our fridge and every time Chick sees it - she talks about what you guys did.

 

lindainks55 said:

 

They are such a joy! Well behaved, fun, easy to love. They did wear me out -- God made Mothers young for a very good reason. But it does me good to get worn out!