Random Wanderings

This is one of the beautiful sunsets I have the privilege of enjoing often at my home. I never tire of them.

Our traditional family decorating gingerbread houses activity.

Greg noticed this present beside the tree a couple of days before Christmas and was like a little boy in his excitement and begging to know whose it was and what was in it. A new black recliner glider with ottoman for him. He had a good christmas also!

Lydia loved her new herd of stuffed horses she got for Christmas. It was fun watching them play with them all afternoon.

Jordan (my newest son-in-law) loves Star Wars. My daughter Ginanne was willing to give up her own christmas present from us so that we could help her pay for this Star Wars Lego Destroyer for him. He was totally involved in putting it together for the next few hours.  She didn’t suffer much for forgoing her present from us, because he enlisted his parents help in getting her a new music keyboard.

I will let this picture speak for itself! That is my Daughter-in-law Jaspenelle putting on my son Michael’s shoes so they could go outside and take pictures in the fog.

As we were sitting around enjoying the gifts of the day, a log in the fireplace fell into the glass door and cracked the glass.

A few years ago I lost my wedding ring. I had lost weight and it fell off my finger. We did have the ring insured but I guess we couldn’t prove sufficiently that the ring was gone and so the insurance would not pay for it to be replaced. I really loved that ring and was sad to see it lost.  At that time my husband and I were having a lot of marriage problems and I was indifferent about the loss of having that symbol of being married on my finger.  Things are better in my marriage now than they have ever been and in the last while I have been really missing wearing a wedding ring and all it symbolizes. We also still carry a lot of debt and have set our goal to be out of debt as soon as possible. We budget every penny and only pay cash for purchases. No more credit for any reason! For that reason I haven’t even mentioned to my husband how much I really miss having that symbolism of marriage on my finger. I knew for us to afford it was still a little ways down the road. Apparently my husband has been saving every penny of his blow money, skimping on lunches, and combined that with the chrismas budget to get as much money as possible to buy me a new ring. He took his cash into the jewelry store, let go of his pride, told them the situation, showed them an example of my lost ring, expressed his desire of how much he wanted to get me a ring and asked for their help. For a time he thought he would have to postpone it for a future time because there just wasn’t enough money. But the jewelry people were moved by his situation, they specially made a ring similar(couldn’t make it exact because of the cost) to the one I had before and  lowered the price to match the available cash. They also told him that they could make an exact duplicate of my former ring and would be willing to take this one back as a trade-in in the future if when we had more money we wanted to do that. My husband presented the ring to me on Christmas Eve in front of all our children. I was very surprised!

So I have a wedding ring back on my finger and I love it even more for the sacrifice my husband went through to get it for me and the fact that he didn’t sacrifice our goal of getting out of debt and kept it within our budget.

IT WAS A GREAT CHRISTMAS!

We had a major wind storm go through the area last night and continuing this morning. We lost power for awhile but had it back by this morning. The damage and inconvienience for us is minor compared to many. My husband had to move a tree out of the driveway before he could go to work this morning. Here are a couple of pictures:

We spent most of yesterday at the WAVA Winterland Social. Part of it was a gingerbread house contest.  Our family loves making gingerbread houses. We make a gingerbread village every year as one of our christmas traditions. So when we found out that WAVA the homeschool program we are involved in was having a gingerbread contest, we were very excited. The girls and I decided to make an Old School House complete with Bell Tower, Flag Pole, Swing Set, Snow Fort, Teter Totter, Snowman, & Christmas Tree.  Much to our surprise we won 1st place and recieved a $50 gift certificate to Target which we had lots of fun spending. Here are some pictures:

 Just one of the many beautiful views I get to see from my home.