Merry Christmas!!!!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday!

Ours was fun, but busy.

We had the chance on the Saturday before Christmas to meet up with our newly married friends Kerry and Cameron for a quick lunch. It was very nice to catch up a little though there is never enough time.

We traveled to Cedar Rapids to celebrate with the Foley family on Sunday. Kerry hitched a ride, so I got to spend a little additional time with her.

Everyone was able to make it on Sunday for Christmas (with the exception of Austin who lives in Colorado). Bruce and Willie were even in town from Memphis TN!

Here is the lovely Christmas tree with the kids' haul underneath!

Cathy had the kids participate in an interactive nativity story - it was really a good thing to spend a little time concentrating on the reason for our celebration...and fun too!

Here are Ben and Alex anxiously awaiting the "go ahead"

Ms. Samantha and Julie all decked out for the occassion as always!

We were able to spend the night and take our time on Christmas Eve day at the Foley house which was nice and made Sunday night slower and more relaxed.

On Christmas day we spent the day at Tim and Nicolle's house for our McClure Christmas celebration. We started with breakfast and hung out for lunch and even dinner that night.

Here is Colin's FatHead of Batman we got him....all up and ready to defend! Looks like Colin is ready to do his part too;)

Congratulations to Tim and Nicolle that are newly engaged!

Steve and Colin doing a little stargazing in the evening

December 10-14

Hello!

I am writing at the end of December for the middle of December since these are pictures I set asside at the time of our ice storms to share and as usual got too busy to finish an entry.

We were not affected as much as a lot of people in Iowa. We had no loss of power - just some trees that looked like they shouldn't survive, so we were lucky.

Here is the ravine in our back yard...you can see the poor bent over young trees at the bottom of the picture:( They have since recovered.

Steve decided the week of his Birthday (the 7th of December) that he was too old to shovel all of the time and outfitted his riding lawn mower with a blade and snow chains:)

Zeus and Ollie were not slowed down by the nasty weather in the least - in fact they seem to enjoy it

I just thought this one was kind of pretty

VERY Busy time of the year.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

~Meister Eckhart

The last few weeks have been a crazy mix of lots of work, lots of school and trying to have a life in between! This didn't leave a lot of time for blogging, so I fell behind.

A few weekends ago (well, since I am so behind it was several weekends ago now) I got the chance to catch up with some of my good girlfriends - Amy, Amy and Beth. We have a long running tradition of going to John Melencamp concerts together and he was in Des Moines - so we got together to continue this tradition! The concert wasn't the best we'd ever seen, but it was really nice to see Amy from the twin cities and everyone else who lives close, but I get to make time for way too infrequently.

Amy, Beth, Amy and I
Thanksgiving has now passed and before we know it, it will be Christmas! It will be very nice in a week when we can get into the spirit. We both really love Christmas, but haven't had a lot of time to think about it yet :(

We had a Thanksgiving celebration at our house with Steve's Family the Sunday before Thanksgiving and one on Thanksgiving in Cedar Rapids with my family. It was nice to get together with both sides since it had been a while.

Tim, Nicolle and Colin at our McClure Thanksgiving

Brett and little Jenna at our Foley Thanksgiving


As you can see below - Steve never fails to entertain the nieces and nephews

Poor Steve ;)

The day after Thanksgiving we headed to Arizona for a visit with Steve's Grandma June and his Aunts. We had a nice relaxed visit with them and though the weather wasn't Arizona nice, it was definitely warmer than here in Iowa.

Steve's Mom Madeline and Jack, Steve and Grandma at Seguaro National Monument

Steve's Mom, Aunt Teresa, Aunt JoAnne, Grandma and Aunt Diana

Aunt Sue and Cousin Jamie

Here is a nice shot when we took a Rhino(ATV) ride out at the ranch

I got to meet Ollie's Mama, Little Miss

You know these two:)

Trip to CR, Aunt Betty's Benefit and a very long week!

Betty and Mom
I started this post at the beginning of this last week, but worked most hours of the day and evening throughout this past week...so am just getting it out today.

Last Friday night I left Steve and the manimals at home and headed for CR.
On the way, I stopped and had the chance to visit with one of my very best friends Jen and her new little one Owen. I guess he is not so little anymore, they grow SO fast, but he did wake up long enough to give Aunt Lori some good smiles and cuddle time:)

On Saturday Mom, Dad, sister Julie and niece Samantha headed to Wisconsin for a cancer benefit in honor of my Aunt Betty Bird. Cathy, Kobe and Zoey came as well. The benefit had a great turn out and we got to see a lot of family we don't get the chance to see often.

cousins Brianna and Kayla

Jeanie and Sharron

Cathy and Zoe

Some of our Feye cousins

Therese and Dan

Even a few of our cousins from California were able to be at the event Diane showed above, and Don in the center below with Bob and Greg (more cousins:)

Karly, Zoe and Bella

Some of us stayed around for some dancing and Karaoke later on in the evening

Starbucks Wisdom for the day...

Every once in a while Starbucks has more to offer than a Pumpkin Spiced Latte;) Though found on the cup of my Starbucks today, this is a good reminder for me, I think I am losing ground on this skill as I get older, I don’t know if it has to do with this Adult A.D.D. I seem to be developing or what. I am going to have to work on that…..

“You can learn a lot more from listening than you can from talking.
Find someone with whom you don’t agree in the slightest and ask them to explain themselves at length. Then take a seat, shut your mouth, and don’t argue back. It’s physically impossible to listen with your mouth open.”
-John Moe

It's Ollie's First Birthday:)

He Used to be SO little!

Gully's Oktoberfest

"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
- Mark Twain

Friday night was our friend Gully's yearly Oktoberfest. He tries to find a lot of different seasonal Oktoberfest beers from all over, including smaller breweries in the US and of course the German ones as well (since it is their "holiday" - it is only right;). He generously shares his finds with many friends that have come to make this tradition.

Obviously this generosity of Gully's extends to more than just his "human" friends

This party was a special treat since most all of the classmates from school that we met with every Thursday night during college for pizza and beer, a night we affectionately call: "Thursday Night Therapy" were there, which is a fairly rare occurrence. We have been done with school for a little over 5 years and though we don't all see everyone all of the time we have never lost touch.

"Thursday Night Therapy" Group

Even Webster was wondering when we were going to leave:)

Mid-Week

"Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save." -- Will Rogers

It is Wednesday and things keep on rolling...We started our next class - Statistics. Can I just say - SAVE ME! Neither Steve nor I are not a huge fan of mathematics, or of classes that expect 2 hours to every one hour of class:( Yes, that is 12 hours out of our week. Boo Hiss!

I know I shouldn't find this as funny as I did, but yesterday morning, I had the dogs outside before work. As I mentioned before, we are the bus stop. The dogs were running the hill on the side of the house, and hadn't even seen any kids at the front of the house, much less headed over to say "Hello"...and all of the sudden I see a kid looking at them screaming "OH MY GOD" repeatedly and running up the street toward his house - and they are just looking up at me like - "What?". I am sure I will hear about a dog attack by those vicious dogs at the end of the street or something soon:)

Roadtrip! Cheers to Jeff and Michelle!!!!!

Another busy, and especially worthwhile weekend spent! We took off on Friday afternoon to travel to Port Washington Wisconsin for our friends Jeff and Michelle's wedding.

Port Washington is North of Milwaukee, right on Lake Michigan. It is a beautiful little town - not that we could really tell when we arrived that night at 11pm - pretty much just smelled like fish when we pulled into the harbor parking lot to meet the wedding party and the rest of the Iowa contingient. We met them at a nice pub on the harbor for some drinks. We got to meet some of Jeff and Michelle's family and friends.

Even though several of us Iowa travelers made the mistake of stopping in the Hotel bar on our way to our rooms, Steve and I had time to sleep in in the morning, and still get up and ready in time to grab lunch and go to the downtown/harbor area to check out the town before the wedding. It is a gorgeous little town!

The wedding was beautiful and something the presiding pastor said was very true, you have never seen more people look so happy to be at a wedding. Jeff and Michelle are both really great people and have a really great son Jordan. They are just people you like to be around, and it was very obvious that everyone was extremely happy for them - most especially them!

The Mr. and Mrs.

Michelle and Jordan cuttin' a rug

He doesn't like to admit it, but he still likes me;)

Before we took off the next day Steve and I went back to the harbor, had breakfast at a great "greasy spoon", where we ran into the newlyweds. After that we walked out to the lighthouse on the harbor. It was a beautiful day!

Lighthouse One view from the lighthouse pier - charming looking town

Here is Steve and I at the Lighthouse (not that you can tell where we are, but oh well)