Road Trip Tales

I believe it was crossing over the Iowa River on our return trip that I said "Iowa River, I think we have crossed over a river named after the state in every state we have been in." Sure enough, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota all have rivers with the same names, and we crossed each on this trip. That of course led to the next question...how many states have rivers with the same name? Well, I pulled out the handy State Farm provided atlas and began to research my question. (I was not driving!) Thank you State Farm and Bonine! On the road I found 12 staes that have rivers with their same name. Once home though, I wanted to verify my findings. Turns out when you search Wikipedia and look at the rivers in each state there are 16: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas River (Kaw River), Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. What exciting things we can learn on road trips.

There's no place like home.

So, our week long Christmas celebration has come to a close. We are back home and reunited with the dog. We will get the cat later. Aside from the weather related delay on Saturday, the rest of our trip went very well. We were fed amazing spreads of food. We got to visit with family and spend time playing games, socializing and even just hanging out. We saw National Treasure 2. (Nick and I also watched the 1st) Both were better than expected, but we liked the first better. We also saw Hairspray. It too was better than expected. We gave and received wonderful gifts.

We are also thankful that our church has been blessed with such wonderfully talented musicians. For our Christmas Eve service we sang 2 hymns I had never heard of. This isn't uncommon, but the 2nd one, I don't think ANYONE knew. Its a bad sign when the song has 3 verses and even the "organ" player stops in the middle of the 2nd. We did sing a pretty neat version of Silent Night that included a banjo. Yup, a banjo. It was pretty neat. We did not get to sing Joy to the world. I think it just isnt the same with out some Joy.

Our return trip started at 5:15am. I tend to suffer from some motion sickness (remember our cruise?) so long road trips aren't always fun for me. My mother-in-law recommended Bonine. It worked remarkably well for me. I wont say the 14 hours flew by, but it sure did help to be able to sleep, read and look at an atlas for long periods of time. My atlas story will come in a bit.

We got to MN and went right to my parents house. Saturday morning we went to my Grandma's house to move her out. She was moved into an assisted living place. She hates that it isn't "home" yet, but seemed to be pretty agreeable to going to the room for meals and MAYBE looking into the activities they have planned. I think she will adjust and find it isn't as bad as she has made it to be in her mind.

My mom's siblings and kids (minus one of the kids) came to her house and we celebrated Christmas and family. We had a lot of fun and a lot of food. Today (Sunday) we celebrated as a family with my parents and brother. We ate MORE food and exchanged gifts and watched some football.

We arrived home a little while ago and unpacked most of the car. We have quite a few treasures. We got quite a few DVDs, which isnt a bad thing with the writers strike still going on.

Anyway, I think that is all for my holiday update 2007. We plan to continue our tradition of New Years eve trilogies, we just haven't decided which it will be yet.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and wish you great things for 2008.

just kidding....

so I said I wasn't going to blog until our return...but we have a bit more time on our hands than we expected... we are just north of Des Moines, Iowa in Ankeny. We got to Ames and stopped for some food. A few minutes after we were back on the road, the wind and snow started. Apparently the storm was sitting right over Des Moines. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the wind. Where there isnt much to stop it (like trees or buildings) it whips across the 4 lane interstate like nothin. When we made the decision (a few minutes into the snow) I called the Marriott in Kansas City, MO to cancel our reservations. I also got the number to the Ankeny Marriott. It seems it is one of the very few places to stay. They had a room and were just 6 miles down the road. In the 10 or so miles we drove, there were no less than than 20 cars in the ditch. There was a group of about 8 all in the center ditch. We saw a truck overturned in the bushes along the road. Basically, it would have been waaaaayyyy to long of a trek to make it to KC.

We took it as a blessing from God that the Marriott was so close and had room. The "best" part, is we are across the street from the Kum and Go. What a horrible name! They seem to be all over in Iowa though.

It does look like it will be a 2 hour drive to get to the Waffle House tomorrow morning, but I think it will be worth it!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

In about 3 hours we will be leaving MN to begin our week long Christmas celebration. It is my goal during that time not to check my email or blog. That being said, feel free to leave messages, but I probably wont reply until after we return to our home. -Do you think Santa will know where to find us this year??

We will start out on our trip to Arkansas today, and stay in Kansas City, MO for the night. That is about half way. We will leave tomorrow morning and make the rest of the trip after having breakfast at a waffle house. I have never eaten at one, so this will be an experience for me. On Friday we will leave in the morning and drive straight thru to my parents house. We will be there for a few nights. Then return home for new years eve. We will not be doing our "trilogy" night this year, but I think that is OK.

Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a great holiday, blessed with family and friends and the joy of the season.

being sick is icky!

It is Thursday at 7:30. We leave for Arkansas for Christmas on Saturday. How packed and close to ready to go am I? Not at all. Gifts are wrapped...does that count? Ive been sick for the last 3 days. Something about that just doesn't lend to packing boxes and suit cases. I did get the cat packed up and ready to spend the week at my clinic.

On the bright side, it's been a few years since I've been excited about the gifts I am giving. This year, I am very excited about them. I think we did a great job of getting good things, and staying within our budget.

My next project is to work on the iTunes mix to put on my iPod for the 14 hours in the car. I think Ive got a pretty good mix of some good Christmas tunes (Tina: I don't think feliz navidad is in there) minus the "Christmas Shoes" song. I don't like it.

I do like this song...and here is a whole new way to enjoy it. I hope they have understanding neighbors!

Everything I know I learned from TV

Im a big fan of the "get a mac" commercials. I really do enjoy them. They make me laugh. Truly, everything I know about Macs, I learned from the commercials. I don't know that much about PCs, but Ive used them. I kind of know how to get them to do what I want. I haven't used a mac in about 16 years. (yup, since I was in high school) My husband has used a mac. He enjoys it. Apparently they are pretty good computers, because most people I know that have used them, really like them. Its really sad when "computer people" (like my hubby) start talking about macs vs pcs, because I really get lost! But lucky for me there are catchy commercials that tell me I could be hip and trendy and use the easy computer just by getting a mac. Good thing those commercials are out there!

Have you seen the "holiday" get a mac commercial with the claymation animation and the catchy song?? its great. I could find that one, but here is one to enjoy!

introducing....

Zachary! My good friends Mary (she was my matron of honor) and Nate had baby number four this past September. Since life has been a little hectic with Nick starting school, we were slackers about getting to Farmington to meet him. We finally got down there last weekend. Though, I think we played our cards right as that means he is about 2 1/2 months old now, and interacts a bit more. Anyway, he is a super kid. Here is a picture of us.

Ah, we like cheese...

I make no secret of the fact that I am not the type of person that knows titles of songs and who sings them. Nor am I great at knowing lyrics. Apparently when words have music behind them, I have a hard time understanding them. I like music, a lot, but this just isn't a gift I have. Usually, this just doesn't come up very often. I try not to sing along when other people are around unless I KNOW the words.

One occasion where this came out, I actually that I asked, because I honestly didn't know: Last Christmas season, I was probably scrapbooking and listening to my Christmas cds. I have a collection of 3 disks that has everything you can think of, and then about 30 more songs. Some, I had NEVER heard of. One of these songs, I could not figure out for the life of me. What on earth does "we like cheese" have to do with Christmas??? So, I braved the laughter and torment and asked my wonderful and very knowledgeable husband.....Whats this song? I believe the answer was a strange look and then "Huh?" So I explained...I have always thought they are singing "we like cheese." Laughter ensued. Ok, at least he didn't know the answer either. So I consulted the cd insert (no, I hadn't in the 5+ years I've owned the cd), only to learn that the song is "All we, like sheep" from Handel's "Messiah." I have never heard it other than this one disk. I'm not sure if it is just this arrangement or this choir singing it, but it really does sound like "we like cheese." Maybe I should send in the recommendation for a cheese commercial.

On a similar note...have you heard people sing "deck the halls with balls of holly" rather than boughs of holly...yeah, i DO have that one right.

Merry Christmas!

interpreting a dream...

For the past 10 years or so I've had a semi-regular recurring dream. I have it about once every 2-3 months, sometimes a tad more often. It is a dream where all my teeth fall out. In many of these dreams I try to put them back where they should be, but they keep falling out. Sometimes I'm in a car, sometimes in a room, sometimes at work, other times....I'm not sure where I am. But usually all my teeth fall out over whatever time frame this dream is. My most recent dream included the fact that some of my teeth are "restored" and the implant posts fell out along with the bridge of teeth.

What does this all mean? Well, there are many books and web sites with theories on what dreams mean. It could be a fear of being rejected, fear of my beauty fading (yeah right, like that could happen), fear of rejection, fear of losing power, putting my trust in human made things rather than God, telling lies, and my personal favorite: fear of losing my fortune (money).

Well, thats a lot of options. Apparently dreaming about teeth falling out is a pretty common dream. I, however, have a different take on the whole interpreting of this dream. About 10 years ago I was in a car accident where I lost 5 teeth and damaged others, ultimately having another 4 pulled. I now have very extensively restored teeth. Do I think MAYBE that has something to do with my dreams? I'm leaning towards that. Maybe, since I have spent so much time, energy and money thinking about and dealing with my teeth, it really is a dream that means little more than the obvious: I'm afraid to loose my teeth. Could it be that simple?

'round about 'round about goes the little mousey

Ok, I would really like to know who thought that roundabouts would be a great idea to have in MN. Apparently when the people decided the lower risk of severity of accidents with roundabouts was a great thing, they didn't consider all the extra up keep that would be required with snow falls. Things like plowing, sand and salt...maybe advising people that they should slow down a little more when turning around a circle that small....

I wasn't a big fan of the roundabout idea when it opened in the fall with good weather. I really don't like them now.

on the bright side...its snowing in December in MN. Must be a product of global warming. For me, it just isn't Christmas time with no snow. For me bare trees, brownish green grass and cold weather aren't enough to get me in the holiday spirit. My husband assures me it is perfectly normal for "Christmas to look like that." silly Florida boy!