Just hours left...

Can you believe that 2008 is just about over? There are just a few precious hours left! Where did the year go? It's all such a blur to me...

This week between the holidays has been long hours working at my job with little time for my family, scrapping or anything else. I'm hoping that will all get better after this weekend. A normal 40 hour work week would be great!!!

My hopes for January are to spend more time skiing, work on my London scrapbook and spend more time with my family! I hope my wishes come true! As for a New Year's Resolution... I don't believe! Do you?

Merry Christmas!

After working almost a full day on Christmas Eve (yippee - I left an hour earlier than normal!) we headed down to Colorado Springs to spend the evening with the in-laws! I hadn't seen my DD since Saturday and was very happy to give her a big hug! Poor kid, she got the flu while she was there! We had a wonderful Polish dinner and stuffed ourselves to the gills! We even got some leftovers to take home! Breakfast!!

We opened a few gifts - no many since we decided only to buy for the kids this year. And then we headed home to crash! We forced Dan to open one gift so he could enjoy it in the morning - tea from London! He was thrilled to get that! Then we went off to la-la land!

Melanie was so thoughtful - she waited until 8 a.m. to get me out of bed! Then we bounced downstairs and opened our gifts in our jammies! It's the only time of year that I do that - I usually always shower first! But it's Christmas! Melanie loved everything that she got and so did Dan. I got a few sweaters, a few cute stamps and cards from Toni and a lot of smiles!!

The rest of our day will be hanging out and cooking a nice ham dinner for all of us to enjoy!

Hope you have a very wonderful Christmas Day!

"Twas the Night Before, the Night Before Christmas...

and all through my house, not a creature was stirring, well except for me of course!!!

All the presents are bought and FINALLY wrapped with just a few hours to spare!! A few last minute gifts for the co-workers still need to be finished tonight before I can rest - candy bar snowmen (compliments of Toni) still need noses! Once that is done, I think I'm as done as they will come!

Just wanted to wish everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Stayed home to work

What a busy week that was! I pulled a few 13 hour days last week between the office and home trying to get all of our employees enrolled in benefits. There were a lot of hiccups along the way and despite the fact that Friday was the deadline, we have several clients who are still enrolling through next week. By Friday I was absolutely exhausted! I'm trying to catch up on some things today.

Yesterday we did a little bit of last minute Christmas shopping, got haircuts, cleaned up around the house and worked on some of the last minute projects I had to finish. I got some done, but not enough. We were suppose to go skiing today at Beaver Creek, but I opted to stay home to try and get it finished. I'm not so sure that will happen, but I can definitely try! So Dan and a bunch of friends are off having fun on the slopes (although probably freezing their butts off!) and Melanie is at her cousins house having fun! And here I am.....

These are some of the cards I made up for Marcy, my Dad's girlfriend for Christmas. The pictures aren't that great, but at least you can see what I was working on these past few weeks. I hope she'll like them!

Christmas is just 4 days away! On Christmas Eve we will join Dan's family down in Colorado Springs for the traditional Polish dinner of pierogi and stuffed cabbage (can't spell the Polish word)! That's our favorite meal of the year! Then on Christmas day, we'll stay home in our jammies, open presents and just hang out together! I can't wait for a day like that!!

How will you spend your holidays?! Hope they are happy and bright!!!

Busy as ever

I love Christmas time, but it all seems to fly by in such a blur! Right now I am feverishly trying to finish a stack of cards that I'm giving away to my Dad's lady friend! This card was one I made... I love Riley the moose... thanks to all the stamped images I made while at Toni's house last weekend! I think this image is so cute, I even asked Dan to get it for me for Christmas! I hope that he gets all the ones I asked for!

Yesterday we went to Breckenridge to ski! I had a great day, putting in at least a dozen runs! I felt really good until the end! The weather was snowy, but there were no crowds, so it was perfect! We skied with friends from Golder and a long time friend from Dan's ski club - Tom! Tom is moving out here to see if he can make a life here! We are very excited to have him and can't wait until he stays with us next month for a few days! What a great guy!

Today I did chores around the house and did some Christmas shopping! I made a dent, but I still have more to do. I'm hoping to get to the mall (ugh, I hate the mall) one night this week with Moira! Hopefully I can get it all done then!!!

Have a great week everyone!

Stamping Class a HUGE success!

I'm going to apologize first for not writing much lately and until the end of the year, it will be probably far and few between as well. Things are rough at work and I'm putting in a lot of extra hours after I get home at night. I just don't have much free time right now... so please understand!

I had a fun weekend so far! On Friday night after work I took the bus up to Conifer and spent the night at Toni's house! She hosted a FABULOUS card stamping class on Saturday at her new studio in her house! She has 6 other women show up, most of them mothers from the school where she works. It was a fundraiser for the school and she raked in a bucket load to share with them! Everyone had such a great time, they all hope she will do it again! As she drove me down into Denver to meet back up with Dan, we talked about all the ideas that she can do in the future! I think she'll be able to get a nice little following going up there! I can't wait to see what her next class has in store! Here is one of the cards that we made this weekend! This is actually Toni's! Mine still isn't colored yet! (Sorry it is sideways - I didn't take the picture that way and every time I try to upload it, it turns it that way. I don't have time right now to figure out why - I've tried 4 times! Sorry.)

The rest of my day will be spent with family celebrating my SIL's bday! It will be nice, but I sure would like some time to work on my Christmas presents instead!!! Have a great Sunday everyone!

Sunday - My Final Thanks for November

I was very thankful on Sunday for the Condo that we had stayed in all weekend up in the mountains. Here's the story...

We left Breckenridge at 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon headed for home after a good weekend of skiing. It had been snowing most of the 4 day weekend and was very windy as well on Sunday. We headed into Frisco to get on I-70 to head "down the mountain", hopefully before the Sunday afternoon crowds! No such luck! As we got about 1-1.5 miles from the highway, the traffic stopped. We could see up ahead it was gridlock on the highway. We tried to get around on the surface roads, but the Damn Road was closed (yes, that's the real name)! There isn't much to do in Frisco, so we waited our turn and got on the highway, headed for Dillon a few miles up the road. We figured we could hang out there until the traffic broke later in the evening. Well, 1.5 hours later we finally got off the highway and went shopping and to dinner in Dillon. While we were eating we realized that the highway was now closed. After a few phone calls to friends back home, it was confirmed. We were stuck! Thankfully we were warm and safe for the time being.

Not knowing how long the highway was to be closed, we came up with plan B - spend the night in Dillon. We called the condo owner and got permission to get back in - but we had to pick up the extra keys at the clubhouse since we had left our set on the counter as requested. When we went there to pick them up - the condo key was missing - there was only the front door key! A few phone calls later and we were calling a locksmith to rescue us with the owners permission! He charged us $90 for less than 5 minutes worth of work! What a racket!!! But at least we had a warm, dry place to stay!

The highway did eventually open back up around 9 p.m. and we heard that if you got on there right away, it was fine, but as soon as everyone heard the news, I'm sure it was packed. We eventually got up on Monday morning and drove back home - it still took us 2.5 hours. Ugh... one of our worst but best trips up skiing!!!

I think we made the right decision to play it safe! And I was very thankful for Rex and his condo!!!