There's No Place Like Home...

...for the Holidays.

I heard that song approximately 100 times this Christmas season.  Do you ever find that there is that one special song that seems to be on the radio every time you turn it on during Christmas?

This year "Home for the Holidays" was it.

It embodied how I felt this year.

Being in my parents home this year was especially magical.

It was my first Christmas as a married woman

AND

it was my first white Christmas.

Talk about overwhelming.

Matching footie pajamas equal real love.  

We danced around in our monkey feet all morning.

The snow was glorious. I have always wanted a white Christmas.  The fact that I got to experience my first one with my husband was something I will never forget.

John pummeled me in my stomach with a well packed snowball.  

I took it like a champ.

My sister and I posing splendidly on the stairs, just like every other Christmas...ever.

Remember when (this) happened?  Its wonderful how something can fill the hole in your heart right back up with love.  This is Pippi and she is our new love.  We still miss Honey and she will always live in our hearts.

There was sledding and snowball fights.  Well...for my hubs anyway.  I tried to sled but kept falling on my butt.

The day after Christmas Dad made us his famous breakfast.  

Yum.

Yum.

Delicious buttery, cheesy, crap now I can't fit in any of my pants yum.

All hand strung by yours truly.

NOW...for an A.D.D. string of thoughts:

May I suggest laying under the Christmas tree and looking through the limbs?  

I got a Kindle this year and I have no idea what to read.  I have never been a good reader but now that I am graduated, I am going to be allowed to read FOR FUN!!! What is that going to be like? 

What to read...what to read...

Merry Christmas to everyone...now to loose all of this Holiday weight. I don't recognize my own face.

Mum picked Mums by the Moonlight

My mother is a trickster.

My mother, sister, and I had planned on going camping at Fort Yargo last night for my mother's birthday.   When I was on my way my mother called and said, "I forgot the foil dinners at home could you run by and pick them up before you come to the camp ground?"  The exact same phone call was placed minutes before to my sister who was also on her way. Hmmm...tricky tricky.

As I arrived to our 10 acre farm, I feared that our woods had caught on fire! The closer I got the more I realized...tiki torches lined the path back to our creek down the hill.  It looked like a glorified episode of Survivor.  My mother had set up camp right there in our woods.  It was glorious.  We had a campout in our very own backyard.  My mother had spent the day raking and putting up tents and building bridges across our creek.  It was beautiful and it was ours.

We called it (Honey Camp)

We spent the night reading stories from our favorite childhood book.  The Adventures of Mabel by Harry Thurston Peck.  This is another one of the many wonderfully thoughtful gifts that I received from my husband on my birthday.  I had mentioned to him in passing ONCE that The Adventures of Mabel was a book I read when I was a little girl.  I was sad I didn't have a copy because my sister got the copy of the book that was read to us when we were small.  He found it online for me as a used book.  I love it.  The first night he gave it to me, I cried and we laid on the floor and I read him a story about Mabel.

 our foil dinners:

carrots

potatoes

sliced onions

cubed steaks

salt

pepper

a splash of italian dressing

fresh basil

garlic

put in tin foil (wrap twice)

oven 350 for an hour

*then you sneak it out to the campfire and trick your children in to thinking it was cooked on a campfire grill.

They said I looked like Aunt Jemima...

No camp-out is complete without plaid flannel shirts.

a kiss for you...

and a kiss for you.

We kept our vitamin waters in the cool of the creek. The water rushed by and kept them at the perfect temperature.

the mums mum picked

mmmm...hot chocolate

nature is good for the soul.

We dug little holes and put 8 candles in the ground.  The 50 was just implied.  Happy 58th mommmmeee.

We slept to the sound of the trickling creek. We peed in the woods.  We didn't brush our teeth.  We giggled by firelight.  We were surrounded by deer at 5:30am.  We loved being together as women.

A Sad Day.

I suppose this post is more for me than anyone else.

Saturday was a very hard day.  I have not been exposed to death many times. I still have three grandparents and my Papa died when I was 4 so I didn't really remember the emotional pain of that loss.


Let me first say, loss is loss.  No matter what or who you loose, it still hurts, there is still shock and sadness, and grief to be felt.

Saturday morning John left early to do his Spanish/English Leagal Interpreter Certificate course. He will do that every Saturday this month. My mom came and woke me up at 9 and asked me to go on a walk with her. I felt a 'prompting' and knew I needed to go with her. We took our dog Honey. Honey is my mother's life.  She is her companion. She has said to me on several occasions , "if anything happened to Honey, it would kill me.". They are so attached, we have had her for 10 years. She is the most humble, sweet, and precious dog.

So, we set off on our walk and mom and I shared some great conversation about what John and I would name our babies, we talked about John's mission, and we talked about how seasons of life are much like the seasons of the year. 


Mom said she had never seen honey so excited to go on a walk before.  She was pouncing like a kitten through the fields.  She was absolutely elated.  I've never seen a little dog so happy. On our way back we were picking flowers to go in the house.  The sun shone right down on Honey and it was the most beautiful I had ever seen her. Her soft fur shone like gold in the sunlight.  I picked her up as two cars passed slowly (we do not put her on a leash because we live on a small country road). I felt her little heart beat in my arms so strong as she had just finished running through the field.  As the two cars passed I put her down and immediately a teenager in a huge SUV came barreling down the small country road at about 55 mph. Honey ran over to the other side and we were nervous and called her name to come to us. The speed was far too much and as she came towards us, the car did not slow at all and ran her over as she almost made it to the other side.

It was the most traumatic and horrible thing I have ever experienced. I was screaming and crying and my mother went over and rubbed her as she died. She went very quickly.  I am glad she did not have to suffer too much. My heart broke as I looked in to the eyes of my mother as she watched her little companion die.  We cleaned her up off of the road and the girl gave us a plastic box to take her home in.  The girl drove us to our house and dropped us off. 


My mother and I grabbed two shovels and went deep in to our woods to burry her. I thought of how the pioneers must have felt when burying their deceased children on their journeys west.  I cried as I shoveled the dirt to make her grave.  We talked about how grateful we were that we were safe but how sad it was to loose her. When John came home we all went out to where my mom and i had buried her and John said a very comforting prayer.


I cried all day Saturday. I didn't shower. My face was swollen and John still kissed me and loved on me as unattractive as I was. I hope we will see her again. She brought us so much love and happiness.

Dear little girl, we hope you are happy and running in the fields of heaven.  We hope you are doing the funny little things you always did.  We hope you know we loved you so much and feel better for having had you in our lives.  We hope we can follow your example of following your master and in turn follow our Master, Jesus Christ. We hope to follow your perfect happy childlike example. We will miss you.