Clean, Fresh Air

It's amazing what a few days in the country will do for your mood. Breathing fresh air, seeing lots of trees, kids running around getting all dirty, animals everywhere, no TV...it's great! The 4 days we spent at Bill's Uncle's farm was wonderful and we all had a great time - especially Zenna!

His Uncle Bill and Aunt Belle are both 88 and have been on their 350-acre cattle farm for about 50 years! And they are as spry as can be - still helping out on the farm when more hands are needed. The farm is run mainly however by their 56 year old son. They have lots of cattle (raised for beef), as well as goats, horses, mini horses, a donkey, chickens, roosters, dogs, cats, a bird, a snake, and a veiled chameleon...it's quite the zoo!

Another fun part of our trip was the visit to the Chattanooga Choo-Choo museum. We got to see lots of trains and a HUGE display of miniature trains too!

We also got to hit the Tennessee Aquarium - which is the biggest one I've ever been to! It's got basically a full-size aquarium for ocean life, and a full-size aquarium for fresh-water...it was great! it also has a great butterfly house - and we were lucky enough to be there when they were releasing the butterflies that had just hatched. The kids got to take them on their fingers and then put them over on sunny leaves so they could dry their wings - it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and quite cool.

Good Movies

There are some movies I could watch a hundred times - over the last few weeks I've gotten to watch them again - due to my family being stricken with the cold/flu thing going around. So, we've spent a lot of time on the couch watching TV :) Of course, because Zenna was sick too, most of them were kid friendly movies (or relatively speaking). I watched "Baby Mama" for the third time - never thought this one would make it to my best movies list, but it's actually hilarious!

Watching another good one tonight - this one more kid appropriate - with Zenna and my nephew Logan. "Night at the Museum" - I actually can't wait until the 2nd movie of this one comes out!

Other off-beat, but really good ones...

• Raising Arizona
• Zoolander (I loveBen Stiller)
• Taledaga Nights
• Blades of Glory (I like Will Farrell too!)

Well...there are many more, but you can tell what kind of movie mood I am in tonight. Back to Night at the Museum - this is a good part!

What a Day!

Inauguration of our 44th president and 4 inches of snow in Raleigh - all in one day! Needless to say it made for quite an exciting 24 hours!

We had already planned to have an inauguration day party Tuesday night - celebrating one of the most significant historical events in my lifetime! The party went on, with my family (who only live about 2 miles away) and neighbors in attendance. We had a politically-themed menu which included:

• Left Wings and Right Wings
• Campaign Trail Mix
• "Lipstick on a Pig" in a blanket
• Victory Veggies
• Red, white and blue chips and salsa
• Red wine, white wine, and Blue Moon beer

The coolest, however, was the cake we were able to get made at Target - I think it turned out great! And it was too funny when the kids were fighting over who was going to get to eat Obama's head. Personally I had a piece of his ear and it was quite tasty :)

Then - to make the day even greater - Raleigh got snow! Zenna was thrilled - this is only the 2nd snow she's seen. The first was on her 4th Christmas, when amazingly it snowed the day after Christmas, and her grandparents had just gotten her a sled for Christmas! So she got to break out the sled and enjoy the snow for a second time! We were out and about at least 6 times, with one rousing snowball fight of mom and Zenna against dad. Zenna got in one good shot for dadddy - right in his ear! A great time was had by all!

Needless to say - it made for one exhausted girl by the end of the day!

An oldy but a goody

Sometimes the best fun is had when you are not looking at a computer screen, playing any Wii game, or have any electronic games in front of you. This holiday we got to spend some quality family time playing repeated times "The Game of LIFE." Remember this from your childhood? We've got an old 1960's version where if you become a doctor you earn a whopping salary of $20,ooo per pay period!

So, Zenna has decided this is her favorite game! She gets a huge kick out of all the life events you go through and loves to play the stock market when she lands on Lucky Day spaces - she always bets big on these!

Last time we played she decided to give it a 2009 twist, and started out as a boy in her car. Then when it was time to get married, she chose a "partner" and decided to be a gay couple (not that there's anything wrong with that - and yes, she actually said this as she added the boy to her car, because she listens too closely to her parents joking around!).

Anyway, it's lots of fun, and great to just spend time sitting on the floor playing an good old fashioned board game. Who knows, next we might do something crazy like stay home for dinner!

It's here and then it's gone...

The holidays always seem to fly by. I spend lots of time thinking each December about how this year I'm going to enjoy the time, not stress about the presents, the clean house, the Christmas card list. But then it happens, I find myself the day after Christmas wondering where it all went! And we have it pretty easy because we don't have to travel!

Oh well - the holidays were still fun, if not stress-free. Everyone got what they wanted from Santa. And this year the Welsh family started a new tradition that I really like - the adults decided in lieu of presents for one another, each person would make a donation to the charity of their choice, and then on Christmas, we share where we donated and why. The kids also got in on the act and donated to charities they chose too. It really did help keep the real meaning of Christmas in perspective.

OWWWW!

You know what really hurts...a paper cut on your toungue! Dang those Christmas card envelopes!

Kid's Interpretation of Christmas Songs

Zenna loves to sing, so she's always coming up with words to songs that she doesn't really understand that make sense to her and are quite amusing. But this weekend was one of the best. She said to me Sunday afternoon, "Mom, why does one of those Bible Christmas songs talk about being in an egg shell? That's just gross and what does it have to do with Christmas?" I asked her what song she was tlkaing about, and of course, she just said, "The one with the egg shells in it." Well, I think for a few trying to come up with it, until a light bulb goes off. I say to her, "Sweetie, it's not 'in an egg shell,' it's 'In Excelsis'..." and went on to explain to her what the song was saying. Too funny - that's a keeper :)