Where is Bulgaria and Why Should I Care?

Well, when Dave told me he had to go to Bulgaria, I had to look it up on a map because I had no idea where Bulgaria even was. It's in Europe to the upper left of Turkey. And that is where Dave is headed tomorrow! (Wednesday)
From the pictures that came up on Google, it looks like a beautiful place. I'm sure Dave will get lots of pictures- he always does.

Snow Ladies

Well, Aunt Sandy and I couldn't resist using this opportunity of snow to build some snow-ladies. We gathered up some stuff, bundled up and headed outside. These are the results... (The first picture is my snow lady, the second is Aunt Sandy's)

And here we are ( we didn't mean to match). I had on Dave's coat. It was nice and warm.

Real Live Snow!!

Here are some pictures from about 2:30 this morning...(playing Yahtzee...THAT'S what I'm doing still up! LOL) It's snowing! Still coming down and there is a little over 3 inches out there right now. Too bad Dave is missing it, since he's in China.

Reminder!

Isn't it cool that God gives us a little reminder now and then that he keeps His promises? How often we tend to forget!

It was a nice wide one too, and you could see each color very clearly...quite pretty. The picture doesn't do it justice at all.

Flowers Again!

On Wednesday, Dave brought me home some flowers again! Tulips this time- those are my favorite! Aren't they pretty? This first picture I took in the dark with the flash- the flowers look so silky in that one! Then this morning, they were all standing up straight, so I took another pic. You can see their colors really well in that one.

The 12 days of Christmas!

We literally did have 12 days of Christmas this year! It started on the 21st (which was our anniversary!!!) with the Harriman festivites and went through to January 1, when we headed home from St.Louis. Cool!
I know I have some pictures from the Harriman gatherings, but I can't find them just now, so I will have to add them later. We had a nice visit with everyone. Dad and Vicky and Uncle Henry and Uncle Gary, April, Heather and Jessica all came from SC, Aunt Sara and Uncle Steve came from Massachussetts, Maggie and Bob came from Greensboro, and the rest of us from around here gathered too. Friday was gingerbread house assembly at our house, then a Hot Dog supper. The gingerbread houses turned out very good...even Ben's "Saving Private Marshmallow" scene. On Saturday at the Grandparent's house, we played games - some Boggle, the Yahtzee tournament (Heather won!) and the Cribbage tournament (Uncle Steve won!), and we ate lots of soups and breads- delicious! I think there ended up being about 8 or 9 kinds of soup- all completely different. I have to say my favorite was Sarah's chicken enchilada soup. We did our gift exchange also, which was fun as always.

Christmas at Home

We had a few days at home between Bermuda and St.Louis and we filled them with family! These pics are from our Christmas with Maggie, Bob and Oliver and our Christmas at home. Mom made her famous Christmas tree sweet bread- yum! That was Sunday, when Maggie was here. We gave our gifts to them that day because they had to get back home. That's Oliver at the top with the little audubon bird we gave him, and the next one is with "Hermie", the little knitted alien I made for him (UFO and all). Christmas Eve Mom & Dale came over and we spent the day eating soups and meatballs and other good stuff, plus the marshmallow reindeer buddies Mom made. We played Wii games and visited. They spent the night with us so we could all get up and have Christmas morning breakfast together. We made eggs and sausage and biscuits and gravy and hash browns- what a feast! Then, while we were waiting on Sarah, Greg and Delilah to come, we opened a present each! Sarah, Greg and Delilah came around lunch time (with more soup!) and we opened up the presents while lunch was cooking, then we ate. Sarah, Greg and Delilah headed out and Mom helped me with the cleanup, then they headed home too. Then we started packing for St.Louis....

Pics from St. Louis

The infamous mooses, a cinnamon roll, Mom & Dad, girls coloring, Jordan wiggling his loose teeth, Kelly, all of us at the table, a camel, view from the roof.

Meet Me in St.Louis!

The day after Christmas, we left for St.Louis. We were able to stay about a week. We enjoyed spending time with everyone! Mom Carlson's cooking was wonderful as always- especially those cinnamon rolls- yum! We got to go see the Christmas lights at Our Lady of the Snows, plus this year we went inside to see the Christmas trees and wreaths on display and check out the gift shop. We did some shopping and ate our traditional dinner at Chevy's (sp?) Mexican restaurant. Plus, us girls had a day of shopping, even though the scrapbook store we went to closed about 10 minutes after we got there! Below are some pictures from the day we went to the City Museum. We hadn't been in a few years, and they had a bit of new stuff. It was loads of fun! As you can see, we did our share of crawling, climbing, sliding (5 stories!) and sliming through some pretty tight spots at times. It's the coolest place- if you ever go to St.Louis, you MUST go here!