Merry Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas! Even though we're snowed in at our house in Omaha, Jeff and I decided to make the best of it. We each opened a gift (as you an see on the right, Jeff wraps SO well, LOL), and watched movies. Around 10:30 we played One vs. the Mob on the XBox 360. Jeff said he wanted to stay up for a bit, but I went to bed around midnight. And, it's a good thing I did!

Santa Claus came sometime after I went to bed! He brought me an Wii Fit, which is good, because since I threw my back out I've been jonesing for some yoga.

Although we're making the best of it, it's still sad to not be in Iowa for the holidays with my family. It's the one time of year we stay overnight there, so it's always special. But, anyway, the bottom picture on the right shows why we couldn't go: we've been in a Blizzard Warning since 6 p.m. Christmas Eve, and a Winter Storm Warning since 6 a.m. Christmas Eve morning. We already have 4 foot drifts everywhere (some higher!), and 20 hours left of this storm.

Unfortunately, the track of the storm changed, so we're in for even more snow. They're now saying we could get 18 inches. I think I liked it more when we were in the 9-12 inch range.

And, we have learned a lesson, Jeff will be taking two days of vacation around the holidays from now on.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL!

Charity

Jeff and I have been helping the less fortunate this year for Christmas... and I hope I can rub some of ourselves off onto our readers and friends. I know it's Christmas and money is tight, but some of these below can be helped at any time throughout the year.

This year we've chose the following:

1.) Catholic Charities (this was through work). I selected an item from the giving tree.

2.) http://www.childsplaycharity.org/ This link is from a gaming site that has worked with Children's Hospitals to get Wish List's from Amazon.com. Since there are 2 hospitals here in Omaha (I wanted Mercy from Sioux City, for personal reasons, but they are not listed) I bought items for the Nebraska Med Center and Jeff is buying items for the Children's Hospital. Don't worry, just because this is for charity and comes from a gaming site doesn't mean that it's expensive stuff. I bought books and DVD's... and it barely cost like $30.

3.) http://anysailor.com/ We're sending letters to sailors (because my Dad was in the Navy, we choose the Navy). You can send all kinds of items to the soldiers, but we're doing just letters from this site right now (we'll do more later--see #4).

4.) My bank back home (well, technically not home, it's in Denison) is offering to send items to our troops for free. All you have to do is take it into the bank by December 31st, and they'll send it in a huge shipment. So, instead of paying for shipping right now with #3, we thought we'd save a couple bucks by shipping this way and thus can get more for the troops.

Remember, even if it's just a letter to soldier...or a can to a food drive, it's appreciated by someone!