Today is my mom’s birthday and we met up with some family and went out to brunch at Granite City, yummy! Then we headed to my aunt Dee’s house for two games of Queens. it was a $10 pay in, the pot was $110 each round! Megan was the winner of round one, I placed second. And Rick was the winner of round two, I AGAIN placed second. I was slightly annoyed at my luck. If I’m going to lose why do the card gods make me sit through the entire game? Also, by round two my cold medicine was wearing off and I was feeling awful again so I grabbed the dog and took a nice nap. And as you guessed it Megan is in town for three days!

Yesterday we went over to mom’s who made us a fabulous meal. Chad and Megan brought Jack over and we chatted for a while.

And on a side note Typical Males are opening for Joe Price January 11th at Vaudeville Mews, so if you like blues head on down.

Rest of the pictures from Mom’s Birthday and some cute deer showed up by Dee’s porch.

That’s right, I took 817 photos this Christmas holiday, of course I didn’t post all of them (only 142), but it was a lot of decision making and sorting. Ugh. So Christmas has come and gone and I survived. We had seven total, here is a little break down on how it all went.

Friday. Went over to Jen & Nate’s to drop off some gifts for Miss Ella, who was too cute (as always). Didn’t stay long because we had to run to HyVee for some Christmas baking ingredients.

Sunday. Went over to Grandpa Chico/Grandma Kay’s house for my dad’s side Christmas. Grandpa made his awesome tacos and enchiladas, it is a Christmas tradition I love! We did a ‘grab bag’ gift exchange, which I was fortunate enough to get a Kathy VanZeeland bag, everyone wanted to steal it to make me sad, but no one did. Nick ended up with a Pizza Oven. It got a little crazy. Randy was able to make it, which was awesome, he just got back from boot camp. He got Kaige matching fatigues. They showed us their push-ups. We also did a little family photo.

Monday. To my mom’s for our traditional breakfast, cards and gifts. So my creative mother decided we would play three rounds of cards who ever was the winner would get to pick a box, one box had a booby prize. Tim got it. Rick got $20 and Chad got a string of lotto tickets. Also, mom took my point & shoot camera and captured some holiday moments while I had my camera…so some shots are the work of Jules. Gift opening was great. Nick got Labyrinth, wtf. David Bowie. wtf. Tim got Musician Friend gift certificates; Chad got some car hoist thing and some gum ?. I got my Brooklyn poster from this year’s wish list, an awesome handbag and the best gift a Monkee’s dvd! (check out Grandma’s face here, “Omigod” apparently she has no love for the Monkees) And then mom opened a digital camera! About time! So Nick showed her how to work it.

Monday Night. Went to Dee’s for my mom’s side Christmas. Pretty eventful. There was family, gifts, Brandon, snacks, dinner, drinks (some of us had a little too many), My Little Pony, shoes…few things to go into detail:
Christmas Calendars – so the three sisters gave their husbands Calendars of all them sort of themed to the month. I did the photography and I think they were awesome. Check out the months here.

Nativity Play – Directed by Dee, she got all the kids to do the first Christmas. In the living room sat the manger, Ella and Joy were angels, though Ella kind of did her own thing, Erik & Becca were Mary & Joesph (Rick was the camel) Brandon was Jesus and Christopher was the Narrator. There was audience participation and right at the end the three wise men showed up (Frankie, Murrany and Goldie). It was incredible.

Grandpa Memory – Since this was our first Christmas without Grandpa my mom had this idea to make a craft/item that represents your memory of Grandpa. Mom made plaque with his picture and the family names around it, Tim made a Dufus #1/Dufus#2 frame. Kim was entered based on her potato salad. Dee made a mobile with pictures of Grandpa. I made a collage of pictures and his recipe, Nick drew and framed a picture and the Henter family made a life-size Grandpa Dick with items around that represent Grandpa.

Tuesday. Went to Deb’s for the usual Christmas Breakfast pizza, yummy! Exchanged gifts. Lexie did some creative wrapping, she also got a phone, but its not in so Deb cut out a picture and put in on the back of a Jello Pudding Pop box. And Deb always buys from Amazon and for some reason they shipped this movie and thinking it was Nick’s gave it to him. He had no clue what to say when he unwrapped it, hilarious. I got great gifts, but my favorite was a 4GB Compact Flash card, whoohoo! Then we did some family pictures. Deb and the kids, Deb, Bruce and kids and thank you to my timer, Deb, Bruce, kids and me!

Tuesday afternoon. Over to Grandma Andersen’s, we were running a little late and showed up after lunch and while they were in the middle of a heated ‘grab bag gift exchange’. We stayed a while, visited and just hung out.

Tuesday night. Went over to the Embassy Suites to hang out with Terry, Kari and the kids. We ate some dinner there and exchanged gifts, again, got some great things, I got an e-reader (a digital book) so you can download multiple books and read them directly from the reader, pretty awesome.

And that was my holiday. It was pretty great and pretty exhausting. Here are the rest of the photos.

From CNN:

Bank to employees: Pay it forward

FARGO, North Dakota (AP) — A bank is giving its full-time employees $1,000 each and part-time employees $500 each. There’s one condition — use it for people in need.

State Bank & Trust Chief Operating Officer Michael Solberg said each full-time employee will receive $1,000 and each part-time employee will receive $500, as part of a $502,000 “Pay it Forward” initiative.

“We’re going to really see some huge impact on our community,” Solberg said.

Employees were told not to use the money for themselves, their families or families of other bank employees. The bank asked each employee to document the good deed with a video camera. The deadline is June 30.

The employees were told they may choose an individual cause, pool their money for a larger project or collaborate with donors outside the bank. The privately owned bank has more than 500 employees, he said.

The bank made the announcement over the weekend.

In previous years, the Fargo-based bank has taken 5 percent of the company earnings and divided it up at holiday time among employees.

“A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”

- Mike Huckabee (Presidential candidate)

For the past six months or so I couldn’t go anywhere without hearing something about Planet Earth (the discovery channels documentary on Earth). It was talked about at work, with family, on the news, etc. While visiting Nick’s parents I noticed the dvd box set of Planet Earth sitting on the coffee table. I inquired about it and Terry said that they are amazing to watch and I could borrow them.

Fast forward, I finally got a chance to watch them. I say it that way because, well, I’m crazy. Crazy because I love, love animals. And if I see an animal get killed even in nature it haunts me. If I read about animal cruelty or see road kill it haunts me. People think I’m exaggerating, but I’ll have vivid flashbacks and be filled with overwhelming sadness. Sensitive, I am and that is ok, better than to not having feelings at all. A lot of people thought I should work with animals, like at a shelter, but I couldn’t handle that at all. I would adopt everything that came in, but I digress.

Planet Earth, holy cow the photography is amazing and beautiful. I cannot believe the stuff they caught on video. Also it is full of knowledge and animals I’ve never heard of. As an educational tool it is awesome. However, my eyes were turned and my ears plugged through a lot of the film. Yes, I get the circle of life (thank you, Lion King). I get in order for animal existence, and to survive, there is a chain that needs to be followed. I never said I was rational, but I cannot watch predators dance around waiting for the sick/weak to give up and die. And the sickening noises they make while being eaten. Ah, even writing that makes me feel bad.

And there it is some craziness I decided to share with you all. Baring my soul. What a moment. If you don’t mind animals getting attacked I strongly suggest watching Plant Earth.

(Side note: I can’t watch March of the Penguins, because of the baby penguins’ deaths)