Merry Christmas!!

This morning Angel was up somewhere around , oh 6AM!!! When I heard her going down the hall I glanced at the clock on the dresser. I thought it said 8:06AM. I thought how wonderful she slept in this year. I then rolled over and went back to sleep. She came rushing in and woke me up. I glanced at the clock and it said 7:15AM. How could that be? Time went backwards! Then it dawned on me thru my sleepy eyes I had miss read the clock. She didn't sleep in at all. Santa really spoiled her this year. I think he brought her everything on her list and then some. It was lucky for her that she sent that letter to him nice and early. This is a picture of her stocking and gifts from just Santa. The big purple blob is a huge bean bag chair. There are roller blades, DS games, CD's, DVD's and many other things. Of course Santa brings the essentials like underwear!! That's a given. We took turns opening gifts. It was one for Mark, one for me, and two for Angel. She was thrilled with everything. I got what I asked Santa for, that was a Mario Cart for the Wii. What a fun game. I know I am hooked!

After we completed our Christmas at home we ventured over to Shannon and Andres' to have Christmas with them. Lilliana was so excited to see us come in. She thought that every gift was for her. She said to me, "I love presents Gramma!" How cute is that. I think the thing she was most excited about opening; wasn't any of the clothes of course, but the gift from Auntie Deanne, Uncle Chris and the kids. It was some sort of Dora and Diego toy and she lit up when she saw it and was so excited. She played with that all afternoon. Isatou got some real nice things too. She got quite a bit of clothing and put on a fashion show for us.

After we opened gifts the kids played and Shannon made a wonderful ham dinner. After dinner we played some games and had a fun time. Angel was wanting to get home to all of her treasures so we went on our way. It was an enjoyable and fun day with family. We love you Shannon, Andres, Isatou and Lilliana. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Eve 2008 with THE MERWIN'S

After all the snow was cleared from our driveway we were able to head to Deanne and Chris' for our Christmas with them. Deanne had called earlier in the day and said that Chris didn't go to work and wondered if we could come earlier then planned. We originally were going to get together after our church service which would have put us at their house about 8:30PM. She said that the kids were driving them crazy!! So we agreed to change the time to 2PM. I don't even think we were in their driveway yet and the front door was open with Emma and Taylor standing there waiting. It was very cute. Needless to say it wasn't long and the kids were ready to start. We decided to go youngest to oldest. Well we know who was first and who brought up the rear. Yes, Emma was first and I was last!
A sweet sweater for a sweet girl. This was from GGma and Papa.Great Grandma and Papa gave him this Huskie clock for his bedroom wall. How appropriate is that!! It will blend in well with that purple and gold room.Taylor really wanted this XBox 360 NCAA 09 Basketball game. He asked Santa for it, but got it from Mark and I. I wonder what Santa will bring him now?!

Devon's turn!! He got this nice zip up sweatshirt from Great Gramma and Papa. From what they tell us he lives in these things. So it was appropriate.It was Devon's year to get the "BIG" gift. You see every year Mark rotates which one of the Merwin kids will get a bigger, meaning more expensive gift then the other two. This was Devon's year. The older he gets the harder it is to buy for that kid! This year, thanks to a hint from Chris, Mark knew what to purchase. His gift this year was a itouch. He squealed when he opened it and you can tell from the smile it was perfect. I don't think he put it down the rest of the time we were there. It was wonderful to see the excitement and joy that it gave him.After opening presents we had dessert and some wonderful conversation. The greatest gift that God has bestowed upon me is my kids and grandkids. We had a wonderful Christmas with Deanne, Chris, Devon, Taylor and Miss Em. We love you all very much!! Merry Christmas!!

SNOW!!! and more S N O W !!!

It was fun to see snow for the first few days. Then it got a little out of control.

Our little snowman lights that line the front walkway got covered.
But it is very beautiful to look at.

Bella absolutely loves to play in the snow.

This is our friend and neighbor Ron North. He and son in law Andres came over and shoveled the snow off the roof of the house, mom and dads fifth wheel, our trailer cover, which was so loaded with snow that it was sitting right on the roof of our trailer, and also the roof on the lower barn. Mark was unable to do anything but supervise from the inside of the house due to his recent shoulder surgery. The snow was almost at Ron's knee. That was too much weight for everything to handle so we thought it would be best to have it removed. We really appreciated all their hard work. It took them nearly 10 hours to get it all completed. Then we had another friend come over with his back hoe to dig out the driveway so we could get the rigs out of the garage. All the snow from the garage roof was about 4 feet of compacted snow. There was no way we could shovel all of it by hand. Thank you Denny Olsen for doing that for us.

Christmas Lights at Warm Beach

This evening we went with our good friends, the Halsen's to see the Christmas Lights of Warm Beach. This is just after we arrived, Mark, arm in sling, Jerry and son Tristan staying warm by one of many bon fires. We were all waiting for Laureen to take care of some important business. She would kill me if she knew I was posting this. But she wasn't the only one that needed to see this house when we finally arrived. It was a long slow snowy drive.
Angel and Tristan chillin' with Frosty. Frosty seemed very excited to see the snow coming down.
These are just some of the fantastic displays that they have. This is a cascade of lights streaming down from the top of a tree with balls of lights at the ends. It was quite a sight to see. This was just one of many trees like this.

Poinsettias made of lights. They were displayed in several scenes.

This is all in lights!! How beautiful is this mountain scene!?! These beautiful displays were throughout the entire site. This is held at Warm Beach Christian Camp in Stanwood. What a fantastic place. How perfect was it that it snowed on the night that we decided to go see the lights. We couldn't have planned it any better. He had a fantastic time. And indeed there had to have been at least 1 million lights on display. It was a wonderful night full of new memories.

Angel sings!

This year Angel was able to join the choir at school. It consists of 4th, 5th and 6th graders. On Friday, December 12th they had the opportunity to go to an Alzheimer's Home in Lynnwood. There were about 20 people that attended this concert and they enjoyed it very much. The sang along with the kids and swayed back and forth to the music keeping time. This was a was a wonderful experience for the kids. When they were done singing they were able to enjoy cookies and juice with them and got to sit and talk with them too. Angel discovered that there was a married couple there that she sat and got to know. The kids went back to school with very wonderful memories and requested from the music teacher that they be able to make cards for them letting them know that they are loved. The teacher then on Monday, December 15th had the kids do just that. She delivered them Tuesday afternoon. I am sure that they loved getting the cards from the kids.

Angel is 10!!!

What a silly face!!

Rachel Issacson, Angels good friend from school. They have been best friends for a couple years now.

Angel and Rachel. Girls can be silly at this age!!

Angel reached a milestone in her life. On December 16th she turned 10. It scares me to think that womanhood isn't far behind. She had a very quiet birthday this year and celebrated with her friend early. Angel decided to invite one friend to go to a movie, they saw Madagascar 2, out to dinner, they chose of all things Alfy's Pizza, and then an overnighter. They had a wonderful time together. They are still pretty silly at that age. They played the Wii non stop for hours.

Then on December 13th we had a family birthday. Gramma and Grandpa called from Arizona, Deanne and Shannon and their families were all here. It is so wonderful to have them al together. We had a cake from Coldstone Creamery, can't go wrong with that!!

Angel had a wonderful 10th birthday thanks to family and friends.