Holidays

Well, we had a very pleasant holiday season. It was actually rather quiet, at least as quiet as this house goes. The only travelling we did was over to Detroit on the 15th for Mark's family Christmas party. We did that as a 1 day trip and even cut it short as the weather was not very nice. We kept on eyes on weather reports through out the day as this was a fast moving system and every time we checked it, the reports changed on who was going to get how much and when it was coming.
Mark's company party was the night before on the 14th so we couldn't go over ahead of time. (Rachel also had a youth group party that night.) The URS party was at a place downtown called the BOB (Big Old Building). It has been renovated on the inside and has several different clubs (bars) and also private rooms to rent. It was definitely rather fancy and we hadn't done anything like that in a long time. I think it would have been nice to of had some little gifts or something rather then having the open bar but I'm not in charge of planning. By 11:00 p.m., it was pretty noticeable of who had taken advantage of the open bar. Quite a few from Mark's department weren't able to make it so even he didn't know a lot of the people there so we were ready for home. What I did find interesting was the number of retirees who were invited and attended the party. They also recognized people for their anniversaries and I am amazed at the people who have worked for URS for 20+ years. It must mean that URS knows how to treat its employees for them to want to stick around so long, right? Hopefully, this is a place that Mark can stick around at too.
Mom came to visit the week before Christmas. It is always fun to have her here. I seem to get to some projects that don't get done otherwise. We even did some baking this time. She had Rachel & Joshua making cut-out sugar cookies while I had Stephen helping me make carmels. This is the first time I have attempted much for baking with the kids and they really enjoyed it. We did some other cookies after she left and put together plates with cards for neighbors and friends.
It was just us for Christmas day. Mark's mom came over on the Wednesday after Christmas though. We actually worked each other pretty hard for Friday & Saturday. I had a friend from church bring over his trailer so we can start going through the basement to get rid of the radon gas in the house. Well, the trailer is almost full, we made 2 trips to Goodwill, and we made 2 trips to our church to what is called a "Paper Gator". This is a recycling program that recycles paper products and our church makes some money off of it so we helped them out for sure. The basement isn't completely done but it is definitely headed in the right direction and we wouldn't have been this far if she hadn't stayed and helped out with it.
More updates soon but just one other thing before I sign off---How's the weather, Dad? At least we have clothes for these temps and they are forecasting a January thaw by Sunday, heading to mid-50's by Tues. Stay warm=)