Thanksgiving

We headed to northern PA for Thanksgiving this year....Gold, PA to be exact. My aunt and family bought a general store there. We took a few "field trips" on the way, one of them being the PA Grand Canyon, my cousin, Misty and I pictured above. I've never been there in the snow......it was beautiful! We had a nice time with the family...actually ate in the store because there was more room to set up tables and we had 20 mouths to feed. Not enough leftovers for supper so we had pizza instead. And after shooting the breeze for awhile, we headed home.....it was a long day!

Reindeer and Lemonade

Wonderful, wonderful snow! Let's just say our good workers at Penndot were not prepared for what happened last night. Everything turned out to be mess, a real mess! And since there are only two ways in and out of Harrisburg on the north side (322 and 11/15), let's just say that nobody went anywhere for a looonnngg time. Thus, we had lots of frantic parents calling in and making other arrangements for their children to be picked up. We ended up bringing home two preschool girls (who are actually related to us), and one of the babies. We had breakfast for supper and after they ate three plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, and hashbrowns, we played Candy Land (yes, we kept ours, has to be about 28 yrs old). Since I haven't played that game in awhile, I forgot how wonderful it is to get my candyman to the candy house!!! But I didn't win, my dear sweet Claudia did. Of course, Kaylee and I celebrated for her. Now Claudia is the type of child that you never know what will come out of her mouth and she's not afraid to say anything. When we were at the table and talking about the bear being here, she wanted the curtain closed in case he would try to look in, forgetting about the door right beside it that is a nine light glass. Kaylee piped up and said that he could just open the door and come in, and Claudia wasn't too pleased about that. She told us that when she says potty words at school, she goes home and her mom puts Tabasco sauce in her mouth. While we were playing the game, Claudia looked around at my dad's two mounted deer heads on the wall and said, "What did Mr. Randy do to those reindeer, cut off their heads?". I had a good laugh about that one! She also had to look at the bath tub and said, "We have one of those too!". I guess it's hard for them to comprehend that we don't live at the preschool 24/7. We had lots of fun together and we're always glad to help the parents when we can. Having those two girls here provided our Friday night entertainment.
On another note, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I guess I'll be drinking lots of it in the near future. Let's just say that life and people have a way of doing things to you that you may have thought would never happen. One case in point - we had our staff Christmas party on Thursday night at a local restaurant. Thursday started out well but ended horribly, so when we got there and waited over two hours to get our food, I was ready to make lots of lemonade. When the food finally came, it was delicious, but who felt like eating it at 8:30 at night? Oh, well, such is life! At least we got the party done and out of the way before the busyness begins.

It's That Time of Year......

My early celebration of Christmas has begun. I started playing Christmas music at work during naptime. I just couldn't help myself. Of course, the kids looked at me as if I had lost my marbles and maybe I have after the last few weeks. It's been crazy and the kids have been off the walls and I've started to climb them, I do believe. So, today I decided to start playing Christmas music. They are probably dancing in their sleep right about now. I've wanted to decorate, but I guess I'll hold off until after Thanksgiving, although here at home, the tree is going up next week because we are going away for Thanksgiving, weather permitting. I'm just about done shopping, I decided to do it early this year. I can't help myself, I just love Christmas! Just a quick update - I don't think I mentioned this before, but my dad got two caribou on his hunting trip and has shot two doe since coming home, so our freezers are getting full. Yes, we have two freezers, one for meat, and the other for all the other stuff. Things have been busy around here, but I thought it was time for an update on here.

Sarah Palin and the Bear

Yes, folks it's true, Sarah Palin was in a small community on Halloween night. That community happened to be about two miles from us. Too bad that we didn't know it until the next morning. There was an article in our newspaper today that confirmed that she was here. Some of our parents from the preschool said that they know people who talked to her and have video footage of her. The biggest event in Dauphin history for sure! Now the thing is, she needed to be here tonight to shoot the bear (like she got her moose) that was in our back yard and on our back porch. Our community has had a terrible time with this bear and the wonderful game commission seems to think that it's all our fault and that residents must be feeding it because it keeps coming back. The game com. will not do anything about the bear. Instead they are telling us to put bird feeders away and don't let anything out that would attract the bear. There have been over 40 phone calls made about this bear and the good people at the game com. have already hung up on some that made the phone calls, yet they will fine you if you shoot it. I guess it's their way of making money. When we got home tonight, we heard something in the back yard and then I ran inside and grabbed the spotlight to see what I could see-a nice sized black bear leaving our yard/woods and heading up the hill to the neighbors. He so nicely destroyed our garbage and knocked over the wheelbarrow. That view of him wasn't good enough for me. My mom and I jumped in the car and drove around to find him. Didn't see him but saw the evidence of him rooting in the garbage cans along the way since tomorrow is garbage pick-up. I guess it's time to set up my dad's motion camera. Last time it was a racoon, this time a bear, what's next, Sarah Palin's lost moose?