FLOWERS
My last entry was on December 19. A Tuesday. It wasn’t a great day for me since I scraped a car in the pre-school parking lot. The next day, Dec 20, was Mark’s and my 15th wedding anniversary. Thanks to a friend, we were able to go out for a nice dinner followed by an exciting stroll through the aisles of the grocery store. Hey, it’s great to be celebrating 15 years of marriage, but after that long, just being somewhere–anywhere–together without the kids is about as much excitement as we could handle. We were home by 10 pm.

Before our “big night out on the town,” Mark surprised me with these:

They resemble the bouquet I carried for our wedding, and they were my favorite Christmas decoration of the year.

FAMILY

We had family visit us over the holidays. Mark’s parents, his brother, sister-in-law, and 4 children arrived at our house on Christmas Day night. Mark’s brother and family stayed with their good friends who also live in St Louis, so we just had a houseful for several days of that week between Christmas and New Year’s. We enjoyed having everyone here, and it was great for the kids to spend time with their cousins.

Here’s a shot of all the cousins after church on New Year’s Eve day.

As you can see, we ate at O’Charleys, where kids eat free. We certainly got our money’s worth that day! I hope they don’t mind the free advertisement here.

FRESH
So 2 days after the company left, the kids went back to school, and I started a new part-time job. I’ll post more about that later. Two days after that, we packed up the kids and went to Chicago for Mark to do pulpit supply at a church up there. We enjoyed a day with some new friends at the Field Museum there, and, it was a relaxing weekend for us.

Then we got home late Sunday evening; I’ve worked every day this week, and the kids have had stuff going on every day after school. So FRESH is NOT the word I would use for our house. I hope to change that this weekend in between scouts and basketball games.

FINISHED
So I am FINISHED for now. Happy New Year!!