Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
holidays

christmas 2004, day 4

Today seemed like the most hectic day of all Christmas weekend. I don’t know if it was because we had to leave the house so many times or if it was due to all of the hours we spent in the car.

It all started off with church this morning. The Sunday after Christmas is always student recognition Sunday and there is a combined service (rather than the usual two services). This year’s service took place at 9am, so I had to get up rather early this morning. Jacob and Brian are used to getting up early on Sundays, because Brian takes Jacob to Sunday school every week and that is also at 9am. After church, we came home, had lunch, and fooled around with our Christmas gifts for a bit.

Sometime around 1:00, we went to visit Brian’s grandmother. She was staying at Brian’s aunt’s house in Scottdale, PA. Luckily, the same people who entertained Jake at Thanksgiving were there, so Jake had a great time. We stayed there for a few hours–pretty much till the Steeler game ended, and then we came home. Jake and Brian crashed out in the car while I drove.

We did some stuff at home for an hour and then headed to my parent’s for a short visit. We only stayed there for an hour or so before we headed home.

Jake is still wired from all of the soda he drank earlier in the afternoon, so I don’t know how he’s ever going to sleep tonight, but we can only hope he does at some point, because it’s back to the old grind tomorrow for all of us. At least it’s a short week. The three of us are off Friday. Brian and Jake are off Thursday. Gotta love those long weekends. Too bad it’s the last one until Memorial Day…

holidays, jake

christmas 2004, day 3

Well, today was the big day. I have to say that things went about as well as I could’ve hoped. Brian got up at 6:30am to put on the turkey. We got it ready last night, so he pretty much just had to put it on the roaster and into the oven. But, it was still nice of him to do so. My dogs have me trained to feed them every morning around 5am, so I wasn’t in the mood to get up again.

Our plan with Jacob worked–he didn’t get up until about 8:45am. We told him to go see if there were any presents under the tree, otherwise, we were just going to stay in bed. We heard him squealing a few times as he looked around. He came into our bedroom to tell us Santa had come and left a sleigh! (Jake got a sled as one of his presents.)

So, we opened all of our gifts and Jake played with his. Here was his favorite. That’s right, a box. We kept telling him that Santa was going to bring him a box and a chair for Christmas because that’s all he ever seems to play with. You’d think the kid didn’t have any toys. Maybe next year we’ll save some cash and go pick up a refrigerator box for him to play in.

Afterwards, Brian and I started getting ready for dinner. I kept the menu pretty simple because I figured there would be enough to do this morning. Things went smoothly. My mom, dad, brother, and grandmother were in attendance today. None of us could eat fast enough for Jake, though–he wanted to open the gifts that they brought and we weren’t doing that until after dinner.

Brian’s dad stopped by this evening because they forgot to give us our gifts from Brian’s grandmother when we were there yesterday. And since we’re going to visit her tomorrow, Brian’s mom would’ve caught hell if we wouldn’t have opened our gifts by then. I can put this on the internet because Brian’s grandmother doesn’t have a computer. His dad stayed for a few drinks and we had a very enjoyable visit that consisted of much bs’ing.

All in all a great day for all. Merry Christmas, everyone!

holidays

christmas 2004, day 2

Today, we raced around like a bunch of crazy people trying to prepare for Christmas (it wouldn’t be Christmas Eve unless Brian was working on someone’s gift in the wood shop). We had some stuff that needed to be done today, and the rest of the work was preparation for tomorrow’s festivities (we are having Christmas dinner here with my family).

The turkey for tomorrow was still frozen like a rock, so we tried defrosting it submerged in water in the sink. Unfortunately, our sink decided that today would be a great day to leak, so we had a watery mess to clean up. Multiple times.

After this, it was time to go to Brian’s parent’s. Brian’s sister, Jennifer, and her family were in from NY today, so we got to spend the evening with them. We had a nice dinner, opened gifts, then went to church.

Now that we’re home, Jake wants to play with all of his toys. We’re planning on letting him stay up a little later than usual this evening so that maybe (just maybe) he won’t be up at 5am wanting to open his gifts. Of course, either Brian or I has to get up at some ungodly hour to put the turkey on, so it might not matter anyway.

holidays, jake

christmas 2004, day 1

Judy came over this evening for our annual present exchange. Somehow, I think she’s getting screwed on that deal. Let’s see–she has to buy presents for three people, we have to buy for one. Hmmm. I’m no math major, but that doesn’t seem to add up. Wait a minute–I was a math major, so maybe I’m right.

Jake was very excited at the prospect of getting some presents this evening. Last year, he kinda got the Christmas thing, but this year, he’s running on high octane. He has been telling everyone all week about the fact that Judy was coming over on Thursday (just ask the daycare staff–they’ll tell you). And today, he only asked every 15 minutes what time she was going to arrive. It’s not so much he was anxious to see her (though he always is), but he was REALLY excited about opening some presents. And this, my friend, is just the beginning.

Anyway, we got some cool stuff and had a great time bs’ing all evening. A few adult beverages were also consumed, of course.

auto, household stuff

dishwasher=fixed

The repair guy came on Monday to take a look at the dishwasher. Of course, he had to order a part (we all saw this coming, didn’t we?). Luckily, the part arrived today and he fixed it today, so my dishwasher is back in working order. And, by ‘the part’, I mean a new motor. The motor seal on the dishwasher was leaking and the only way to fix it was to replace the motor. So, I guess I will be adding Frigidaire to my list of companies to boycott (They’re right up there with Dodge…Brian got a recall notice for his truck today. The upper ball joints for the front wheels might fail and the wheels might fall off while he’s driving. How nice. At least Dodge is footing the bill for this one).

But getting back to the point, I know I use my dishwasher a lot, but shouldn’t a motor last more than four years? The cost to repair the dishwasher was over 1/3 of the price we paid for it. Granted it was cheaper to fix than to buy a new dishwasher, but I think if this happens again, we’re going to have to seriously think about replacing it.

Let the dishwashing commence!