I'll take 50 degrees and raining...

considering that we've been in sub-freezing temps! We were visiting my sister Joyce and her family from Saturday to yesterday in Dallas, TX. Saturday was fine, about the same temps as San Diego, so there wasn't a huge transition. Sunday was downright balmy. We wore our t-shirts around in the 70 degree temperature. Then Sunday night the temperatures suddenly dropped. I mean, Monday was so cold! When we were going out to lunch and Joyce opened the garage door, there was freezing rain outside! Todd and I had to borrow coats, because we don't own any, let alone travel with them. We gave all our coats away when we moved to San Diego. Our flight home yesterday got delayed by a couple of hours due to the weather in Dallas. When we finally boarded our plane, it made it to the edge of the runway, then it suddenly stopped and the engines were shut off. Captain said we were stopping for 10 minutes of de-icing. I saw the truck pull up and spray the wings with tons of that de-icing stuff. Some people scowled, but I personally would rather fly with non-iced wings that worked! I loved seeing Joyce & Alex and the kids. But a sad & unexpected thing happened on Sunday morning. Alex's dad passed away very unexpectedly. He had been having some health issues and was in the hospital to get checked out, but no one ever expected him to pass away so suddenly. We were all saddened, but especially Alex of course. Plus it was such a shock. So, a lot of our Sunday was spent re-arranging schedules, with Alex trying to find flights to Cleveland to be with his family. Alex ended up leaving on Monday morning. Joyce & the kids left today for Cleveland, because Joyce had to finish up some things for work first. I felt very sad for them. Joyce and I lost our mom last year and now Alex has lost his dad. I felt like we shouldn't be losing our parents yet when we're only in our 30's. It seems that should happen later. On Sat night Joyce & Alex took us to their couples Bible study Christmas get-together. It was a potluck and Joyce made chicken enchiladas and cheesy potato casserole. The food was good, and they were a fun bunch, even though we didn't know anyone there and felt weird in the beginning. We had a fun time eating and playing games. I'm glad that J&A have all these friends from church that they can rely on and build each other up. I miss that. We used to be in a small group Bible study, but the group got defunct after some couples started having kids and stopped coming. We joined another group but that group got disbanded too. Since then we haven't found any other groups to join. After we found out the news about Alex's dad on Sunday, we got some pizza from Little Ceasar's for lunch. Then Joyce and us and the kids went to Super Target to get some gifts for the kids' teachers. I had never been to a Super Target before! I wish there was one by us. Joyce spent a lot of money on getting the kids' teachers and therapists and other kids gifts. When we were kids we didn't give our teachers gifts at all. But I hear that this is the trend now. While at Super Target, I found the Target brand of Peppermint Bark, so I had to give it a try. It actually is very good. Quite comparable to the Williams-Sonoma one, but at half the price. They also have raspberry bark and cookies & cream bark. Then Sunday night Joyce made some lean pork chops for dinner. We made a gingerbread house and helped the kids decorate it. Make It Easy - Set III template by Designs by Lili @ Scrap Artist (coming soon!) Jingle Baby & Cozy Kitchen (alpha) by Kristin Cronin-Barrow & Meghan Mullens @ Sweet Shoppe Designs. It's A Date by Zoe Pearn @ Sweet Shoppe Designs (coming soon!) Font is Another Typewriter On Monday morning Alex left for Cleveland, and the kids went to school, so Todd & I and Joyce went to Chili's for lunch. Joyce had to work some from home too. We had some sandwiches for dinner so that nobody had to cook. Early on Tuesday morning, Joyce found out that the boys' schools were closed due to the icy weather. She had planned to go to work for a few hours. So Todd & I took care of the boys while she went to work. It wasn't too hard since she had already packed lunches for them. We played games and fed them lunch. Xander has a current fascination with spilling liquid on purpose. I found him all wet at one point, after we didn't see him dump a cup of water all over himself. He is 6 1/2 years old, but he's autistic and non-verbal. I think he's a sly one though! He knew his parents weren't around and tried to take advantage by making mischief. I had Andrew (the 4 1/2 year old) help me find some clothes for Xander to change into. After that all cups and liquids were put away or up high, where he couldn't reach. That little rascal! The flight back was uneventful, except for the delay initially. I loved seeing my sister and her family, but I was also glad to be home.

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The sound of credit cards charging...

I enjoy the Christmas season... really I do. But I don't enjoy the consumerism so much. Christmas isn't about who got the best and most expensive gifts. Some of the best gifts I've ever gotten are token gifts and didn't cost a lot. But they were thoughtful and sentimental to me. And I actually remember them for years to come, because they meant something to me. And Christmas is really about the love that God has for us. He loved us so much that he sent his Son to die for our sins. Now that's a gift! In the spirit of not giving expensive gifts... did you know that Amazon is giving away a free Christmas MP3 song per day? It's been so fun to download a Christmas song per day and listening to it. They're actually from well-known artists too. Click on this link and you can download them too! The first 11 are all still downloadable. You can put these in your chosen MP3 player, including iPods. Being a financial analyst at work and a financial planner of my household, this time of the year I have these financial things on my mind. Maybe they'll remind you to look at your financial situation and make some choices too.

• Have you spent all your healthcare money in your FSA (Flexible Spending Account)? If you still have money leftover in it, be sure to go get some glasses/contacts or even some over the counter medications. If you don't spend it by Dec. 31st, you lose the money you've put in for the year.
• Have you incurred a capital gains loss of $3,000 or more this year? (This is a rhetorical question this year, I suppose...) If you sell some stocks that you've lost value on this year, you can offset up to $3,000 of the loss against ordinary income, thus decreasing your income tax liability. Who doesn't want to pay less taxes?
• If you've set a goal for yearly contributions into your company's 401k plan, now's the time to look and make sure you've contributed enough. If not, make a larger contribution in December. This year's contribution limit is $15,500. Same with IRA contributions. If you haven't made yours for 2008, start thinking about it. The limit for 2008 is $5,000, and you can contribute for the 2008 year all the way until April 15th of 2009. Don't be afraid to invest in your future. After all, the stock market is on sale right now!
• Year-End Charitable contributions - we always evaluate in December whether we've given enough for the year. If we have some money to spare, we give to our usual charities that we support, picking one or two of them. After all, this IS the season of giving.

Oh, and one last thing... this came in the mail yesterday for me.

The Williams- Sonoma Peppermint Bark. It's one of my favorite Christmas time treats. But I'm willing to share! ;)

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Sunday Scrap News

Yesterday I got the awesome exciting news that I was picked the Pixel Gypsy Designs Elite Scrapper for November, based on my nominated layout "What Christmas Means to Me".

I'm really honored to be picked out of all the awesome pages nominated in November! I submitted several of my layouts into a contest at PenScrappers.com. They're giving away several prizes, one of which is a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, which I would LOVE to win! So if you have time, I would appreciate it so much if you could go to the website and vote for my layouts! Just click on the images below and click on the "Vote For It!" graphic on the upper right corner. This one in the "Holidays" category: These two in the "Sports" category: This one in the "Vacation" category: This one in the "Family" category: Thanks so much for voting for my layouts. You have my eternal gratitude! I also wanted to let you all know that The Digi Dares is coming back on Friday 12/12 with a brand-new site design and challenge! To make sure you get all the info, sign up for the Digi Dares Facebook Group!! A couple more pages I created this past week: This first one was for the December Songbird Avenue kit "Jolly Holidays" by Emily Merritt, Jan Crowley, and Meredith Fenwick. All proceeds will benefit the American Diabetes Association.

and here's a look at the kit:

This one is made with "A Heartfelt Christmas" by Michelle Coleman @ Little Dreamer Designs.

...and a look at the kit...

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This is the story of a boy named Barry...

My friend Rich from work told me a story about a boy named Barry today. Barry went to the same high school as Rich, but he was a class ahead of Rich. Barry wasn't particularly scholarly in high school. But he was really into basketball. He would dribble the ball to school, and dribble it all day long. Rich saw Barry play pick up basketball games all the time. Barry played on the varsity basketball team his senior year. Even though Barry wasn't really into scholastics in high school, you could kind of tell that he was smart. He would go home at lunch and type out his paper that was due in the afternoon, and return to school Barry also worked at the same Baskin Robbins as Rich, although they did not work there at the same time. One time Rich was talking with Barry in front of Barry's grandmother's apartment, and an overhead flower planter fell and broke on the ground, barely missing Barry's head. Rich said Barry looked down and said, "That's not good." After high school, Barry started college at Occidental College in LA. Occidental College is a good school, but it's no Columbia, Harvard, or University of Chicago. Rich said Barry was a late bloomer. Rich showed me the quarterly newsletter magazine that he still gets from the Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. I looked with fascination at the photo of Barry with his 5th grade class, taught by Mrs. Hefty. Mrs. Hefty had the knack of making every child feel special, including Barry. She made them feel that they could accomplish anything. I continued to turn the pages and saw photos of Barry with his half-sister Maya and his mom. And of Barry graduating from high school. So what happened to that boy named Barry that Rich knew from high school? He now goes by his full name of Barack. Yes, THAT Barack.

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Meerkats: Up Close & Personal

The day after Thanksgiving, we were invited to join our neighbors Fred and Annie on a trip to a meerkat reserve in Morongo Valley (near Palm Springs). Opportunities like this don't come along every day so we readily agreed. We left at 10 AM and it took 2.5 hours to get there. The drive was long, but we laughed at all the people suffering through long black friday retail lines. We arrived early so we stopped for lunch at the Morongo Valley Cafe. Their menu had both food descriptions and a history of the valley; it was hilarious. For instance, we learned that a day without hamburgers is like a day without sunshine. They also had a really old NCR cash register on display. I had a hamburger & french fries while Todd had club sandwich & french fries. After lunch, we headed over to the Fellow Earthlings Wildlife Center. This special meerkat reservation is the only private one in the western hemisphere. Because of the popularity of the show "Meerkat Manor", lots of people have discovered Fellow Earthlings via the Animal Planet website. As a result, it can take months to get a tour. Fred and Annie waited over one year. At exactly 1:30 PM, the founder Pam Bennett-Wallberg herself opened the gate for us and let us in. Pam is the publicity spokesperson for Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet. She's run this meerkat reserve for 21 years. She was part of the Cambridge Kalahari Meerkat Project in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. She's the foremost expert in meerkats in North America. The first visible feature was the new privacy fences surrounding the property. Pam explained that people had started trying to peer in at the meerkats with binoculars and it gave her the willies as well. The compound had their own solar power, refrigeration and water well. In the event of a power outage, they would be able to survive for some time on their own. After that we went into the cabin to sign some forms and learn what we should expect on our visit. We also played with the house cats and dogs. Pam gathered the meerkats' snacks (live mealworms) and put them into cups. The meerkats recognize those cups! Before we even went into the enclosures to visit them, the meerkats were pacing and making noises because they were excited to see us and for their snacks. All 7 meerkats used to live together, but after a while they couldn't get along anymore, so they had to build separate enclosures for the different groups. The first enclosure had two older meerkats (Remi & Suri). We weren't allowed to pet them or pick them up, but they crawled up our legs to get their snacks. They couldn't see very well, but they were enthusiastic about the mealworms. They also liked to lay around together in their bed under the heat lamp. So cute! The next enclosure had two meerkats (Kendi & Rafiki) and this time we were allowed to pick them up and pet them. Some meerkats like to get the mealworms from our closed fists, while others like to get the worms on our flat palms. We're not sure why. Best guess is that some meerkats haven't been able to figure out how to peel our fingers back. They were very noisy and they bumped hips and barked when they got too close to each other with the food. The free-for-all instincts must be hard to crack. They ate very noisily with loud crunching sounds. Annie & Fred and us took turns feeding and holding them and taking photos of each other. Our last encounter was with the third group of 3 of them (Jengo, Nalo, & Bara). They were very playful and ate up their snacks quickly too. Then afterwards they were playing with toys and threatening the meerkats in the other enclosure with war dances. We finished the day listening to Pam's meerkat stories. They've done TV commercials and photo shoots. You can see several commercials for Telus on YouTube. We took a photo with Pam Bennett-Wallberg: Finally, we had to leave. Annie was not happy and tried to figure out how to stay longer. After driving, dinner and gas, we got home around 8 PM. We loved the meerkat visit and we learned a lot about meerkats. It sure was a unique experience!

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