Christmas is going, going, going,......

Hi all,

Well the weather is warm - it thawed all night and so snow was falling loudly off of our tin roof all through the night.

Well, Christmas is over - we have sort of laid off of the Christmas music and I like to have more silence than anything! It was a little over-stimulating to get all prepared and all-in-all it went great!

We had the Burland clan over for Christmas Eve - it was nice - everyone came and I am told it is the first time all of the siblings were together since their dad passed away. I am getting better at cooking for lots of people (in this case about 20) although my timing on stuff can be better - but oh well - the food turned out! Ha! We also did one of those White Elephant Gift Exchanges. That also went well - especially with the trading that took place after it was all over. It was fun.

The day after Christmas, we went into Missoula to check out the savings. Dominic got a good deal on his extra controller for his new x-box 360 and Marie and I found some clothes deals. It was a productive day and we got home in the early afternoon. Marie is especially fond of a new plaid jacket that she found. It is very nice.

Marie skipped wrestling practice for the day in Missoula. Yesterday she went back to practicing. A funny Marie story - to me anyway - is yesterday morning she had wrestling practice from 9 to 11 am. She got up at about 8 and showered and came out looking like she was more ready for a photo shoot than wrestling practice with a bunch of boys! She had her hair fixed and was wearing her new coat with a pair of bootcut jeans with her knee-high shiny leather boots. She was toting her new green (she loves green and only is drawn to green "stuff") dufflebag full of her wrestling gear and was in a good mood.

She walked to the library after practice to meet up with me. I volunteered for Jo Crawford since she had to help at the food pantry but she ended up coming to the library after she was done with the food pantry. Marie has met her before and so they had greetings for each other and Jo got to see Marie's new purchase as Marie was once again showered up and in her vogue attire. She was telling Jo how she showered there and how she feels like she smells different working out here than she did back in Germany - she is funny.

We closed the library at 11:30 and I went snowshoeing with Stacey Reed (mother of one of Dominic's friends) on the Canel just out-of-town and Marie went to Missoula with the Coordinator Marilyn, her husband RC and one of their 3 exchange students, Yesmen (from Egypt). She and Yesmen went to the indoor swimming center and she had a good day it seemed - she got home at about 7 or so.

Dominic went skiing with Ligas's at Snowbowl in Missoula. He enjoyed it - usually he doesn't like to ski Snowbowl because it is very difficult and most of the time it is really icy but it sounded like he had a good day. He skis and Zane snowboards.

After he got back at about 5 pm, Dominic nearly had me convinced to go to Missoula to buy a basketball game that he wants badly for his xbox 360. I told him that he needed to help me clean out the storage room downstairs and also go to church today. He didn't mind the storage clean-up (gese - it is much worse than going to church in my opinion!) but tried to talk me out of the church commitment. I told him that I was really a bad parent for even considering running into Missoula for the game and the game alone! In the end, I didn't go to Missoula - we ended up looking on e-bay and found the game for cheaper than it is in Missoula but we are going to see if we can't find it in the sales flyers today from the newspaper and go from there.

Dave got home about 6 from plowing snow all day. He was beat but still helped us tear apart the storage room. There was no place to walk in there! Now - the downstairs is completely torn apart - "stuff" all over the place! I really have to part with some stuff that I store for work. Dave is parting with all sorts of old computer hardware and software and books and ..... so I better do the same. I am so ready to part with my old albums and tapes and such. It all must go. I hope the church is willing to start taking donations for the church bizarre that takes place in the spring.

I have been reading The Shack by WM. Paul Young. Sib gave me the book for Christmas. I am a little over half done and will just process it a little here - it is a novel about a man whose 6-year-old daughter was abducted and murdered and the killer was not found. Anyway, he drifted farther and farther from God when he received a note in the mailbox to meet God in the shack where the murder took place. He does so and finds God to be a black woman and the Holy Spirit to be an Asian woman and Jesus to be an Arabic gentleman. It is rather interesting - have any of you out there heard of it? It basically reinforces the principles in the books - the 4 Agreements and A New Earth - basically not to judge - do not be so quick to label good and evil as they come out differently at the end of the circumstances and situations judged early-on.

Well, I better go and see what this day has in store - non judgmentally, of course!

Love,

Amy Jo

PS: Do you want to use this blog? Is anyone out there interested in doing most of this type of communicating on the blog instead of e-mail? The downside is that you need to complete a registration to be able to post to the site but after you do so, you just hit "sign-in" in the top right corner and then hit POST - a blue button that appears and you are automatically signed in. The up side is that less e-mail is generated and it is easy to comment on the specific things that one wants to. Let me know and I will go back to the e-mail if you don't want to do this - but think about it before writing it off.