America

Congratulations America on once again a smooth transition from one President to another. Many countries don't handle this as well.

Goodbye President Bush -- I will miss you. I pray that you will have many blessed years ahead.

Welcome President Obama. I pray that you will have success in your Presidency and that you will achieve balance in your life for the sake of your sweet daughters and wife.

Yesterday during the media coverage of the Inauguration, I heard people referring to the President as Barack. I understand that many people feel a personal connection, and that is a good thing. But now that he is President, I believe that he deserves the honor to be referred to as President Obama.

God Bless America and to a brighter future ahead.

Vacation Pictures

I finally got a chance to work on my pictures from Colorado. We spent Christmas Week vacationing near Breckenridge. We had a great time.

Click on picture to enlarge.

We bought a Charlie Brown Christmas tree and mostly decorated it with cut out snowflakes. Everyone had fun with that.

We snowboarded and sledded right outside our cabin. The view from our cabin is shown in the picture bottom left.

These elk were right outside our cabin. Everyone was excited to see them.

1st Birthday

Cora had her 1st Birthday party last weekend. It was a great party. The party was at our home because we are centrally located to those being invited. The theme was Winter. Everything was white. My daughter made wonderful cupcakes and sugar cookies.

Cora wore a beautiful black velvet dress with a bright pink bow around the hip area. With her birthday in January, she may think that she should get presents every month!

The sugar cookies were the hit of the party. Everyone was amazed that my daughter made them. They thought they were store boughten. They looked great and also tasted great.

Cora put on a pink t-shirt with "one" on it to eat her first piece of cake. She really loved the icing. After most of the icing was gone, then she started on the cake part. She thought it was pretty great too!

Cora did a great job opening her gifts. She sat on her dad's lap and they opened each and everyone. She got very excited about the present below - I think it was because it was a big box! She definitely has a lot of toys to play with now and many cute outfits to wear this Winter.


After a few people went home and mostly relatives were left, Cora went down for a nap. She went straight down - no crying, nothing. She was wore out! What a big day!

Christmas Gift

My husband surprised me with this ring and a matching necklace for Christmas. My camera didn't do a super job at capturing how beautiful it is, but I looked online and couldn't find a picture of the ring.

It is black diamonds in the middle and white diamonds around it. He picked it out by himself and I really love it. We weren't suppose to be getting gifts from each other because we went to Colorado for Christmas, but .... I'm not complaining!

I did buy him a Bose headset myself, so I guess we both broke the rules! I guess rules are for breaking!

Performing Songwriter

Congratulations goes out to my son-in-law! Performing Songwriter has reviewed his CD. Follow this link and

look for Ross Christopher: http://www.performingsongwriter.com/pages/music/115.cfm

It is a great CD and I'm glad it is getting recognition.

Prayers

Last Friday, a young girl from our church was in a terrible accident. She is a vivacious, beautiful 5 year old. She was airlifted to a hospital 40 miles away and her life was holding on by a thread.

The doctors have told the parents that she is paralyzed from the neck down and will need to be on a ventilator for the rest of her life.

The community has surrounded this family with love and prayers. If you would like to read more about this family and this precious little girl, follow this link: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/margaretromph

Please let everyone you know about this family and lift them up in prayer.

Happy New Year

We are back from our vacation in Colorado. A full week of snow and fun that goes with that (skiing, sledding, snowshoeing, gameboards, eating, etc.). Our children went with us as well as our son-in-law's family. Our sweet granddaughter had both sets of grandparents with her all week! Our cabin was great and plenty of room for everyone and a beautiful view of mountains and an occasional elk. I will be posting pictures soon.

For now, I am still trying to dig out from underneath vacation and all that goes with that -- laundry and more laundry, boxes of packed goodies, all the miscellaneous that you thought was a must for a vacation week! My house is a full blown disaster and I've been too tired to dig into it yet this week (back to work, etc.). So New Years Day is the day of cleaning! What a way to ring in the New Year -- oh well, I still plan on sleeping in first!

Everyone have a Very Happy New Year. I hope 2009 is just as great as 2008 has been for our family.