Monthly Archives: December 2009

Dec 21 2009

Savannah… Georgia!

As I mentioned, we’re headed to Orlando for Christmas later this week. (!!!)

My mom emailed me and suggested that we look at going an alternate route. Normally, we take I-75 all the way to the Florida Turnpike, but apparently a gas truck ran into a bridge on the Turnpike a few weeks ago, and all but one lane each direction are closed. Since we anticipate the traffic to be really heavy due to Christmas, we immediately saw the wisdom of my mom’s advice.

There are several alternate routes, but the one that appealed to us the most is going over to Savannah, GA and then getting on I-95 and heading south to Orlando. We love the city of Savannah! Of course, this is going out of our way and will make our trip much longer. So, we also decided to stay the night in Savannah to break up the trip a bit. We found a nice hotel somewhat near the historic district of Savannah so we could spend the morning there before having to head south to Florida. I booked the hotel room tonight. I’m excited!

(We briefly considered camping, then realized that the cats would be with us. And 2 adults + 1 baby + 2 cats in a small tent is probably not ideal. Not to mention that it’s probably cold there.)

I have a lot to do in the next two days, including taking the cats to the vet, renewing my license plate on my car (they expire on my birthday), and wrapping all the presents. Oh and laundry and packing. Fun, fun. :-)

Dec 20 2009

birth announcements

I made this before Savannah was born, and plugged in the pictures later. I was going to print them and send them to our friends, but with the cost of the house this got placed on the back burner. I thought I’d share it now. :-)

birth announcement

Dec 19 2009

what do you want for Christmas?

The other day, we had dinner with the men from Paul’s Bible study, and their wives. (And Savannah!) One of the wives said something interesting that I’ve been thinking about. She said when she was growing up, she and her siblings weren’t allowed to make Christmas “wish lists”.

I thought that was interesting. My family always did wish lists, mostly because we lived in Peru and it was hard for our grandparents and other relatives to know what we would want otherwise. Now, we email each other wish lists, and then of course we follow that up with emails to everyone but the recipient saying what we’re getting them so as not to duplicate anything.

I brought it up to Paul yesterday and he said he didn’t grow up making lists. We agreed that while it’s harder to come up with gifts without knowing exactly what the person wants, in general the gifts are more meaningful. I like the idea of not having our kids spell out what exactly they want. I don’t know how practical it is, but ideally it’s a nice idea.

How about you? How do you handle wish lists? Do you think one way is better than the other?

Dec 19 2009

Savannah talking

Savannah loves to “talk” to us while she’s sitting in her bouncer, the other day I took a video of her. :-) I think it’s so cute! You can see she’s really close to grabbing onto the toys, but she’s not quite there yet.

Dec 19 2009

late night ramblings

It’s 1am and I’m here messing around my computer. A few weeks ago, Paul and I got a new camcorder (a Canon Vixia) and tonight I finally decided to figure out how to get the videos onto my computer. I was having a bit of trouble, but it seems that I have finally gotten it to work. It’s just taking for-ever.

The funny thing is, at 10pm tonight I was debating about whether or not I should wash the diapers because Savannah only has two clean ones left. I finally decided on no, because it takes almost 3 hours from start to finish, and I was afraid I would be in bed before then. But, seeing as how it’s after 1 already, I would have had time. Oh well. :-) First thing tomorrow morning!

Christmas is coming so rapidly! We are headed to Orlando next Wednesday, so I’m making a list of things to do before we leave. I got the oil changed and the emissions checked in my car today, so on Monday I need to go to the tag office renew my license plate. (In Georgia, your plates expire on your birthday. Great idea, except for those of us whose birthdays fall on a holiday, and then it’s a pain!) I also need to call the vet and see if I can get some sort of sedative to give to Ebony on the drive to and from Orlando. I talked a bit about it here; I just think that it would be better for Ebony and for my own sanity if she was a little less stressed out during the drive.

Also on the to-do list is to finish wrapping all the gifts, and mailing the ones to relatives out in California and New England. I finished the Christmas cards a few days ago. That took a while! This year, I printed all the addresses off on labels which saved me soooo much time and hand-cramping! I felt a little guilty though – labels just seem so impersonal. Oh well. My brother-in-law took a family picture for us, which I included in with the card. After I finished all the cards, I had one picture left over. I know I didn’t miscount so…. that means I accidentally forgot to include the picture in one of the cards. :-( So I apologize to whoever gets that picture-less card! Mommy brain!

It’s been really cold here! And by really cold, I mean it’s been in the 30′s. Which is cold for Atlanta for December. It’s also been really rainy, which is annoying because it’s just warm enough that it’s not snow, but so cold that it’s miserable. We have had SUCH a wet fall this year. I wish it would snow, because I have never seen a white Christmas and that is one thing I want to experience in my life. :-)

Okay it seems that I might be close to being able to get this video in a format at which I can upload to the internet and share with the world… took long enough! (Seeing as how it’s now ten til 2am.) I will post it here when I’m done.