We're back!!

I felt deprived, like the luxuries of life were gone and would never return!

About 4:30 Sunday morning...the winds were whipping through like crazy, shingles flying, Christmas decorations coming down, the power going out...

Fast forward to 7 Sunday evening...I'm on the phone with DTE, here's how it plays out:
DTE: Thank you for calling DTE, may I have your address
Me: Sure, yadda yadda, can you tell me when my power will be restored
DTE: Sure thing, it looks like we have a crew out working in your area and there are about 31
people left without power, should be up within two hours
Me: 31???!!!! You must mean more like 231, since no one in my neighborhood has power
DTE: Well, we must have gotten a report from the field, looks like there are only 31 left
Me: Okay, well, it doesn't sound right, but I'll keep waiting

Fast forward to 9:30 pm: Still no power, a bunch of the neighbors are running generators, the hum is driving me nuts, it's still about 60 in our house, so we decide to go to bed

Fast Forward, now it's 6:30 Monday morning: It's FREEZING in our house, Daniel has to go to work, I check the thermostat and it says 47 degrees, Katie's still sleeping and I'm still tired so I crawl in bed with her

Again with the fast forward, 8 am now: Katie and I get up and get dressed, go get my sister in law and head out to McDonalds for some warmth & breakfast & some play time for Katie then after that we head over to her house since she has a fire place that we could use to heat atleast part of her house (she lives down the street in the same neighborhood, so she didn't have power either), we call DTE two more times throughout the day, they promise restoration by midnight but we don't get our hopes up

Fast Forward to 7:30 Monday evening: Daniel has just gotten home from work, we're all sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace eating dinner (thank god for gas stoves, atleast we could cook!!), we hear a slight humming, then we notice lights on electonic gizmos, HURRAY!!! THE POWER IS BACK ON!!! 39 VERY cold hours later we have power again and all is well!

During those 39 hours we played every board and card game one could imagine to help pass the time, which is much easier said than done when it gets dark at 6 pm every night, candles can only put off soo much light.

All that having been said, our next major purchase will be a generator. Not a Huge one, but one big enough to atleast run the furnace and keep the fridge and freezer cold, we can live without tv and computers, but a few lights and alarm clocks would have been nice. I'd better start the saving now!

Christmas Fun

Well, Christmas is over. We had a great day and we hope you all did too! Katie was finally old enough this year to really appreciate everything that was going on around her. We spent the last week discussing what good behavior meant to Santa about every 30 minutes; and we must have called him just to make sure he got her list about a million times. She was very specific in her wish list this year, she wanted princess little people with a pony and stairs for her people to climb. She got the Dance and Twirl Palace, and Pony and Carriage and another little princess with some accessories; she was simply elated. In addition we got her about a bazillion other things. Ever since I started school she has been asking for a pair of scrubs, or 'doctor clothes' as she calls them. I found her a little pair that has all of her favorite Disney Princesses on them, so now she wants to go to school with me. She also got a Princess TV for her room, a VTech, some ponies, some games, another baby doll, more little people, and the cutest little dress up clothes you could imagine. In addition she was also given a 7 week gymnastics class and a seven week swimming class by my parents. Undoubtedly there were a bunch of other things I can't even remember right now!

I'll post some pics of the day here later, but if you want to see more pics than what I post here you can always visit her website. http://www.babysites.com/sites/joannewhitney/default.asp?page=home&seq=1

Grandma & Papa are in town

My mom and dad arrived safely in town last night. Katie knew it too, as soon as we got home she started asking where they were and when she could see them. I called them this morning to see when we could come visit as they are staying with my brother for a few days before coming here. They came and picked her up about 30 minutes ago and are going to spend the afternoon with her. As you probably remember my mom was just here last week, but we haven't seen my dad since we went to Florida to visit for Katies birthday in October. They're here until the day after Christmas and will be staying with us for the last half of there visit.

This will probably be my last post until after Christmas. I'm done with school for two weeks after tomorrow and there is still much left to do. Daniel has Friday off, so we will be wrapping up the last of our Christmas shopping, wrapping presents, and doing a mini Christmas with Daniels family so that we can minimize the number of gifts Katie has to open on Chistmas day, especially the ones that won't be kept here.

Happy Holidays too you all!!! Have a safe and happy time!!

Christmas is almost here!!

Well, as the holidays get closer things start to get more and more stressful. I can honestly say though that this year seems to be going better than the years past. Christmas pics are done, and most of the cards have been sent (the only ones left are those to my online friends and they're coming soon!!). The house is almost completely ready, many many thanks to my mom for that. Most of the laundry is done, I hope to wrap the rest of it up tomorrow. All of the baking is done except for one cheesecake, which at this point I'll hold off until a day or two before Christmas to make. Most of the decorations are up, we'll be finishing tomorrow as the weather is supposed to be much nicer than it has been. The only major task left at hand is wrapping ALL the presents. Katie is going to her aunts house for a few hours ext Friday so that we can wrap her gifts as she has already been trying to open the one's we have wrapped for her cousins.

Speaking of Katie! She is just loving the holiday season. She helped make and decorate cookies here at home last weekend, then this weekend she helped again at her aunts. She is IN LOVE with Christmas music. We can't go anywhere in the car without her asking us to turn the radio on. She's learning the words too. My favorite is when she sings Up On the House Top, she knows most of the words, so she does it pretty well. She also loves all the holiday movies. We're managed to record a few of the Mickey Mouse ones, so, of course, we have to watch them all every day.

Happy Holidays to you all!!!

Grandma came to visit

My mom is in town visiting this weekend. She retired at the end of May and her and my dad moved to Florida. They were here for a ffew days in the middle of June and we went to visit in October, but it still seems like we haven't seen them in ages. Only my mom is here this week. She flew in yesterday morning and is leaving Tuesday evening. We have a busy weekend planned, baking cookies, taking pictures and lots and lots of visiting. Her and my dad will be coming in for Christmas, so she'll only be gone for a week after she leaves.

The Holidays are upon us

It seems like it's been so much more than a week since I posted last but that's probably just because it seems like we're so busy there's never any time for anything.

Thanksgiving was great. We had lots of family over and everyone visited and ate. It was great fun and great eating. Katies cousin Aurora spent the night and Friday we spent the day playing until daddy got home, then we packed everyone in to the car, including Auntie Heather and Grammy, and went to the holiday parade. We took both girls last year and they loved it, so it's a condition we want to continue. Next year we'll try to go earlier so that we can take part in some of the activities they have before had and get a spot right on main street. Saturday the girls and I hung around the house and played for most of the day and then we took Aurora home.

Katie has been a busy girl. She is in to everything. She's finally starting to get better at playing by herself. She's really in to playing dressup right now, which is great considering the amount of dressup clothes she has and the fact that we got her another outfit for Christmas. She's getting her holiday pics taken on Friday, we got her a cute little dress a few weeks ago, and a toddler size santa hat. She's gonna be so cute, I love getting her pics taken at the holidays because she's such a ham and they always come out so cute.

Grandma (my mom) comes in to town tomorrow for a long weekend. While she's here Dar (my aunt) will come over and we'll do our annual holiday baking. By then end of the day we'll have made enough cookies to feed an army. Hopefully my mom and I will have the chance to visit a few craft shows while she's here too. She will be doing quite a bit of visiting with some of her friends from work.

Daniel is still working as much as ever. He has 3 vacation days left to use by the end of the year, so he is using one this Saturday and one each of the next two fridays after that.

Me, well, this is week 4 of 5 of my first mod at school. It's going really well. If this mod was any indication the next 5 mods are going to fly by and I'll be doing my externship before you know it. I've been fighting a bit of a cold for the last few days, but it seems to be a little better today.

I need to get some decorating done for the holidays, so I'm off. Happy Holidays to you all!!