Frigggin Cold

Halftime of the Bears Packers game, we've got every space heater we own on full blast....it's just down right cold. Might need to head to the orange bar to get a nip of something sweet to warm up. We were under a winter storm last night into the morning. We got ice and snow, just a couple inches. It's the wind, 20-40 mph, and the wind guts that are keeping us in for the day.

Kids are off school, they got out Tuesday afternoon. Gabe was treated to an appearance at Central with Bill Clinton and Magic Johnson doing a little stumping for Hillary. After last weeks snow fall, Tiffany treated Elli and Abbi, and Abbi's best friend Miranda to an afternoon of sledding.


Here is Abbi and Miranda:


I'm off until January 2nd, using the last of my 3 weeks of vacation. Our Xmas shopping is done and in the books, I've been in touch with Santa Claus so we're both on the same page (for a while there he wasn't returning e-mails). The girls will perform at the Baptist Church on Xmas Eve at 5:15 for a Nativity scene. Bears...touchdown......21-7 Bears.....It's been awhile since we attended a holiday service, although we probably won't stay after the program is done.

Before the service we will open a couple gifts with niece Riley and uncle David and Aunt Ally before they go off to David's dads place. Then after Santa comes, the kids will open gifts Tuesday morning, then we will all enjoy Grandma Marcia's homemade coffee cake for breakfast before enjoying a nice ham for dinner. Tiffany and the girls have been busy making sweets, fudge, cookies and other stuff. The kitchen has been smelling good!!!! Abbi just came in the living room and slyly change the channel to the Disney Channel without me seeing. I thought the game went to commercial......the commercial seem to go on forever. I glanced at the TV, saw the Disney logo....damn.....Bears block a punt and return it for a TD.....missed it.....caught the replay....28-7 Bears. Sneaky Abbi.



Thursday night we celebrated Marcia's 60th birthday at Biaggi's Ristorante Italiano in Davenport, a very classy joint, even though you don't have to look classy to be there. She thought we were just going for a meal, but we surprised her when she got there. About 15 people, family, friends, were waiting in the Wine Room. We had our own server, stayed for 4 hours, had numerous bottles of wine and spirits. The food is incredible, Gabe devoured his plate of spaghetti and meatballs, Tiff had some chicken stuffed with cheese and ham and I went with the special, a ribeye encrusted with black pepper. The girls went with chicken nuggets.

One highlight of the night was a 24 minute movie me, Ally and Tiffany all helped to put together. It was a picture slide show of Marcia's life, starting with her birth announcement, baby photos, prom and wedding photos, all the way up to photos with her grandchildren. We have Windows Movie Maker, I had to convince Ally and Tiffany if they got me the photos, I could produce the movie, with transitions and fades and music. They wanted to outsource the project, paying money for someone to do it. I showed them a 5 minute movie on what it could like before gaining their approval.

The movie was 251 photos long and had 6 songs to accompany the photos. Marcia had no idea it was coming. I guess the project turned out good, we've had some requests for copies.