Clarkenhoven Christmas!

It's been a crazy life lately. Between soccer, Girl Scouts, meetings, more meetings, Dr.'s appointments and work, I've not been able to find any time to Blog lately! I was finally able to catch up on almost 2 weeks of posting my Photo Blog pictures tonight.

I'm definitely finding it much harder to find things to take pictures of as Project 365 winds down. It's not as easy as the weather gets nastier and nastier to just hop outside and find a beautiful flower that is begging to have it's picture taken!

This past Sunday was Clarkenhoven Christmas! I have been begging for the last 3 or 4 years to get everyone to pose for a family picture. Everyone says OK and then the next thing I know we're on our way home with no picture!

I wanted to take it outside but we were late getting started and it seems that I was outvoted on the Outdoors venue! BUT I got my picture!

Katie was excited to receive another Webkinz! (Like we need any more Webkinz in our house!!) She particularly liked this one because it goes along with our District's mascot!

Emily really liked her new Chipmunk Webkinz! Her cousin picked it out because she said Emily looks like a Chipmunk. I'm not sure if this was good or bad but you be the judge!

This is Katie and her cousin Taylor. They only get to see each other a couple of times a year so they enjoy their time together when they can!

Lucky Thirteen!

It was this day 13 years ago that Gord and I were married for the first time. I say the first time because we were married twice!! I'll save that story for another day.

We got married by Judge Moynehan at Cass and Al Johnson's house. They were kind enough to let us have our wedding at their home. Sadly, Al passed away this year.

We needed to get the immigration process started so that we would be able to live together once we got married at our planned wedding in September. We had been told several different ways by several different people the correct way to do it. I just wanted to make sure that it was done legally so I talked to an Immigration Attorney that worked on my floor and decided that this was the best way to get the ball rolling.

Gord was attending school at the time in Cranbrook, B.C. so imagine his surprise when I called him and told him to fly home for the weekend so we could get married. I managed to plan a mini wedding (including getting the marriage license) in less than a week.

In attendance were each of our best people, each of our parents, my brother, Gord's sister and I think that was about it. We tried to keep it quiet that we had gotten married so that our church wedding remained special.

Gord's mom got us some very nice flowers and a cake and I wore a white dress with flowers on it. I do have couple of pictures so if I can get my scanner working I will post one.

Also, we share this anniversary with Uncle Wally & Auntie Adele so Happy Anniversary today to them as well!!

My Sweetheart!

Gord surprised me today by asking if I would like to join him for lunch. Well since my husband works about 45 minutes away from me this does not happen often. He showed up with some very pretty roses too!! If you look closely you can see that they are almost striped.

We didn't go anywhere fancy for lunch but I was appreciative of a nice sub from Subway.

Gord looking very coy!

I even got him to smile nicely!!

Happy New Year!!

I had to work yesterday but I got home and had a power nap (15 min) in order to actually be able to stay up until midnight! We had dinner and then we headed over to some friends to spend New Years Eve with.

I took Hot Artichoke Dip and we all had a great time.

The Good News and The Bad News

Well the good news is that we got a new computer so I can now download my pictures ~ yeah! The bad news is that we had to spend money that I would have rather not spent right now (Christmas Time) ~ Boo! Circuit City had a booming hot deal today but when we went in even though it said in stock right on the internet in their store apparently it was wrong. So Best Buy got our business. We bought an HP. We've had good luck with them in the past so we went back!

Now back to Christmas and the pics that I couldn't download before.

On Christmas Day we went to my sil, Cathy's house for brunch.

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My niece, Kelsey and my nephew, Keenan

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Katie on the Inversion Machine with nephew Logan and Emily watching and Taylor the Snowman in the next picture.

Next day was Christmas Day. We stayed home and had my Mom and Dad and our friends Cheryl and Terence and their kids Callie and Calob over for dinner.

This year was definitely a much more dificult year to buy for the kids. They're beyond the toy stage and into whatever pre / teens like. The Wii was definitely the highlight present of the day.

Our dinner menu is basically the same as Thanksgiving but I made a Pumpkin Cheesecake for desert.

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The loot and the Wii!!!!!!!!!!!

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Pretty Adult Table and Pretty Kids Table

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Group Picture

The next day was Boxing Day. We went to my Uncle Wally & Aunt Adele's for dinner. I think that there were are 25 people there.

Katie & Em beside their tree and Katie watching my cousin Robbie play Guitar Hero

The next day I brought the kids to work with me until we had to go to the Boys and Girls Club and they helped me take down Christmas decorations but my boss called me in later to show me the handprints all over the bathroom mirror!

The after work we wen to a place to try eye glasses on for Katie. We've been wanting to get them for a while but our town has no selection and it's hard to get them into town to try on glasses there. The one in the picture is the one that she picked.

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And no, Katie is not using a peace pipe in the next picture. Katie has had a nasty cold and she had been complaining that her ear had been hurting and we thought that it was turning into an ear infection so we took her to the Dr. and he was more concerned about her lungs so we ended up doing a Nebulizer treatment while we were there and another round of Prednisone (steroids).

Carollers

Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang at 9:15 pm on Saturday Night. Honestly, it scared the crap out of me! I opened my door and there were 2 girls there who started to Carol for us.

We've never had Carollers before. They sang Jingle Bells for us. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to give them money or what? They said nothing was expected of us and after they graciously let me take their picture, they ran off into the night!