January 2020 Happenings

It's been a busy January.  The kids have had several snow days - it's the 24th, and we have about 2 inches of snow in Clinton right now.  Garrison finished second in his den in the Pine Wood Derby for Scouts - he had a great time.  He had his first reconciliation toward his First Communion in the Catholic Church this month.

We went to see Garrison play basketball, and I had the privilege of attending Peyton's Girl Scout World Thinking Day with her and Amanda.  It was organized chaos, but it was fun to be there with Peyton and all her friends and to just be included.

Mark has visited us every weekend this month and spent the night two weekends.  We have had some delicious meals - even Pizza Glen Pizza - and have enjoyed watching the Chiefs playing in the playoffs and making it to the Super Bowl.  Hopefully they can win the Super Bowl too!

We are going again tomorrow to Overland Park to see Garrison play soccer and basketball and to enjoy being with the family - hopefully going out to lunch.  I will play the gathering music at church tomorrow - and then Mark will be here for fried chicken and a fun afternoon.

We are blessed - God is good.

Christmas 2019 - Kids' Visit to Clinton December 2019

First of all, I miss Mary looking forward to reading my blog - she always looked forward to seeing our family's pictures and reading about our crazy!

We had a busy Christmas!  I was blessed to get to play the piano at church - to share my God Given talent - several times - with my duet partner Marnie Bellamy and with our Forty Fingers group which includes Marnie, Brenda Ford, Janet Parks and myself.  I even played the organ for both services on 12/22 when Sam was absent.  Blessed.

Mark joined us for a delicious ham lunch on Christmas Eve and visit.  After church, we traveled to OP to spend the night with the Todds.  The kids were excited for Christmas morning, waking everyone up early to get started on the festivities.  Santa was good to them - Garrison had asked his parents early in December about Santa - a friend had told him Santa was not real, and he asked them to tell him the truth.  They did, and he went upstairs to cry - poor
baby.  Christmas Eve he said to his Mom - I don't remember what you told me about Santa, and I
don't intend to ask you again.  ha ha  He put out reindeer food and cookies and milk for Santa.  Sweet boy.  After we opened gifts, Amanda put out a lovely breakfast of cinnamon rolls and a candy cane banana and strawberry fruit display.

Everyone participated in Just Dance - so funny.  We decided to make it easy on ourselves - and everyone loves it - so we had picked up Jack Stack BBQ for lunch which was a hit.  The kids decorated Jesus' birthday cake, and we all sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and they blew out the candles.  What a wonderful day.

A few days after Christmas, we went to OP to pick up the kids for a 3 day stay.  We had fun at the Aquatic Center - a favorite of theirs and a request.  We had picnics in the living room, went to church, Baby Mark came for lunch and the Chiefs game which was a blast.  Grandpa and Garrison went to see the new Star Wars movie.

Peyton had her first sewing lesson on the machine and made a beautiful pillow case.  I was so proud of her, and she was proud of herself

Amanda came on Monday to pick them up and to help us with our tech issues.  She spent several hours - bless her heart - setting up ROKU and Fire Stick for us.  No idea what they really are, but we have them now and installed.

Back to normal now - Ron played golf on New Years Day with Dennis Sieger.  Debbie Sieger came over for a visit.  We are blessed.