Happy B'day Randy!
Still love you after all these years!
I wish you could have all been here for Randy's birthday celebration. As it turned out we had a few folks in - and it was wonderful how at first the laughter would hardly stop, and the birthday cake (his favorite ... chocolate with white frosting) was served up with BIG tasty slices. Ice cream for those who wanted. After awhile it quieted down to a bit of chatter and then the DANCING GIRLS knocked on the door. The music was blaring and in they pranced -- one, two, three belly dancers -- to perform a suggestive (but not dirty) little routine while singing HAPPY BIRTHDAY. You should have seen his face! And me, with a new camera and not one picture to document the event. It was probably one of the BEST birthdays ever ...
And then he woke up.
Truth is, short of a couple of Happy Birthday's throughout the day -- and two or three times when he called I asked him if he had slid in the ditch on his birthday (I didn't want him in the ditch - because I didn't want to go out in the blowing cold snow to rescue him!) It was actually a pretty lame birthday on the scale of birthday scales! We decided we would go to the place of his choice on the weekend for a meal. He did get a fun card from Stephanie, Rhiannon sent two e-cards (one because TUCKER, their oldest dog, liked it **??**), an email of Jill singing Happy Birthday to him (you did a GREAT job), and today a clever e-card from Joannie arrived. Joy delivered on favorite things again this year -- I think he's gotten Rice Krispy treats the last few years, but this year he got a BIG bag of peanut M&M's -- ON his birthday yet!
God is good. Yup, yup, yup! My afternoon job, as you will recall me whining and moaning about then, was cut last month. Earlier this week my a.m. boss asked if I'd be able to work 10 extra hours a week for at least the next four weeks. You betcha, kind sir! Yeah! I'm still saying THANK YOU JESUS, but a.m. boss has since given me the 'to-do' list of what is to be accomplished in those extra hours. YIKES! It's going to be ACTION packed hours, believe me.
Downside is that it causes me to be later in the evening when I get off my afternoon job, but fortunately this isn't a horribly busy time of the year for me - and I think it will work out just fine. Doesn't it just make you giddy when you realize how directly and personally the Lord is taking care of you?
Since I haven't written since the day after Christmas ... I suppose a lot has gone on. The big thing was that we had a New Year's Eve party here on ... NEW YEAR'S EVE (I love how that works out each year!) We invited our local church. There were a lot of people here. I think about 30. I thought that seemed like a good crowd. We started by playing 'Apples to Apples', which normally I like okay - but there were just way too many playing. And it was loud and confusing and I finally slipped away and did some piddly stuff in the kitchen, etc.
Then we got a smaller group game going and that was better. I had three tables set up - hoping three different groups could sit around and play whatever they wanted. It was okay the way it was - but a bit more than I could wrap my old 2009 brain around. Maybe my new improved 2010 brain would handle it better. Guess time will tell!
We've been living in the DEEP FREEZE. It seems relentless. On the days that it isn't sub-zero, it is snowing and blowing. We're about to run out of corn - in fact we're burning gas right now because we ARE out of the corn we have in our trailer (I told Randy we should use the bigger wagon, but NO!!). Earlier, he was trying to burn some old stuff we have stored in a plastic container. It's ugly corn and not a good idea to use.
I'm not sure how we're going to get our wagon out of the back yard, since there is snow on the ground and our van isn't powerful enough to drag it out on it's own. (Did I mention I told Randy we should use the bigger wagon?) This wagon is pretty light weight and easy to manuever (in good weather without snow on the ground), but the tongue is pointed away from the street (another 'I told you so' from previous years), so we're sure to get the van stuck now. Maybe we could load up a bunch of plastic containers and put them in the back of the van ... for now though, the gas heat feels pretty dandy. We'll figure it all out after Sabbath.
As many of you know **boo-hoo-hoo-hoo** my married kids and our baby have moved to Lincoln, NE. It's just the saddest thing ever. I have to pretend it's just the little peanut I miss, because people scoff at you when you cry buckets of tears over your older kids moving away. I'm sorry. But I've had 'homesick' feelings for any time when I'm away from my family (or if they are away from me - I have the same feelings) ever since I was little. So I just go along with it and let them all think I'm only missing Jaimee.
The good thing was that they made a trip back home for NYE. That was fun to have them here. It felt right. We learned something on Sabbath at lunch. I'm just telling you this so that you can be wary if ever you eat a meal with us when the marrieds are around. BE CAREFUL, right Nick? Nick was filling his plate at lunch. He sat the plate down for some reason (to get something ... ) Ryan said "is this plate anyone's?" (meaning the partially filled plate ... ). Without looking Randy assumed he meant one of the empty plates sitting there for people to take, so he said "no".
Fifty-nine seconds later Nick re-emerges and said "hey? where's my plate?". Of course then he discovered that for whatever reason, Ryan thought the partially filled plate was there ON THE COUNTER to be had by the next person along. But there you go Nick -- I just put this together as I typed. You know how you don't eat here at our house???? But you say if something is ON THE COUNTER it is fair game? I guess you are right! It IS fair game! (That is a whole nuther story ... how one person who 'doesn't eat here' can consume so much 'fair game food'! *LOL*) ... hmmm?
I'm including the pictures I took with my new camera at mom and dad's house (a couple from our house too I guess) - before the battery died. It has a lot of bells and whistles on it that takes a lot of umph. I'll have to learn to know when the battery is getting low.
I'm going to say SO LONG!! But not before I try to guilt someone in the Bauleke household into sending us a note. I don't think we've heard one keyboard tap from you since sometime in September -- I'm not good at emptying out my email box - and that was the most recent one. Hope all is going well for you.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Gail too -- her birthday was on January 3.
HOVER YOUR LITTLE CURSOR OVER THE PICTURE TO GET THE INFO ATTACHED!
