Friday-Sunday, December 29-31, 2017 Getting Ready, Family Christmas and Happy New Year!

Friday, December 29, 2017

A good part of today was getting ready for our immediate family Christmas tomorrow at my daughter Misti's.  I spent the morning taking care of things I needed to get done at home.  I am trying to finish some last minute paperwork that we want to store in our safe deposit box, so I spent a few hours this morning getting that completed so I won't have to worry about it next week.  

I needed to stop at the bank to get cash to put in Christmas cards for our kids and their spouses, at the courthouse to pick up some copy paper boxes from sister Crystal (great for hauling and packing things, large gift boxes, etc.)  I'll make good use of them tomorrow for several things.

I also needed to call to check on my prescriptions at the Cherokee Health Center.  All of my prescriptions have been mailed to our mail service in Pittsburg, except one and they are still waiting on it to be signed off on so they can process it.  They suggested I call back after lunch to see if it will be ready today.  (Note:  Guess what, I forgot to call them back with everything else going on this afternoon - so it will have to wait until Tuesday.)

I had a gift I wanted to deliver to a friend of mine.  You might remember Betsy gave me a gift after we stopped at the mall awhile back and I wanted to reciprocate plus I found a great little cross made with debris from the Joplin tornado that I thought she would really like.  After lunch Dean and I drove to Chetopa for a short visit with her.  She is having a small sitting room added on to her house, and we peeked out the back door to see how it was coming along.  Unfortunately, we couldn't stay too long as I needed to get back to Oswego by 2:30.

Since Misti has offered to have our family holidays at her house I wanted to go back and help get some things done at her house in preparation for tomorrow.  Haleigh, her daughter/my granddaughter watches my cousin's grandson, Isaiah during the day.  While I was waiting on a few clothes to dry, Isaiah and I played two games of Uno - he beat me both times!!  Haleigh's dad picked her up around 4:30, so I took Isaiah home with me until Misti got off work.  

Once home, I made hard boiled eggs in my Instapot that I will use for my potato salad, and boiled my potatoes.  Tomorrow morning I'll assemble the eggs, potatoes and remaining items.  I'm also making calico beans, so tonight I browned the hamburger and bacon and will finish those in the morning as well.

We decided to order a pizza for dinner.  We were both tired.  It was a long, busy day for both of us and we still have another big project to finish yet tonight.  Dean was getting ready to leave to pickup the pizza, when Misti arrived to pick up Isaiah.   After enjoying our pizza, we gathered up a sack of prizes I had purchased earlier today at Dollar General and all of the cash I had been saving in my purse, as well as some loose coins we had thrown in a small container in the bedroom.  Then we spent the next couple of hours making two plastic wrap balls that we will use as our "game" with the grandkids and the adult kids.  We made a smaller one for the grandkids (12 and under), and a much larger one for the 13 and over bunch.  We did this last year but found the adults get a little wild.  We thought it would work better if the younger ones could unravel a plastic wrap ball of their own.

By the time we were finished with all of that, all we could think of was falling into bed and getting some rest.  


Saturday, December 30, 2017

I was up at 4:30 this morning.  As soon as the coffeepot was turned on, I started gathering all of the ingredients for finishing the potato salad and the calico beans.  I made two apple pies at Thanksgiving and I froze one of them, so it went into the convection oven as soon as it reached the appropriate temperature.  Once the salad and beans were assembled, I set down to drink my coffee, and read a few emails and blogs.  

I couldn't doddle too much with all I still had to do this morning, so after doing all of the dishes, I showered, dressed, fixed my hair and then headed to Misti's with the food I made.  After dropping everything off, I headed to Parsons.  My first stop was at Walmart to pick up a cookie cake for our grandson Roman's 7th birthday.  His birthday party is scheduled for Jan 6, and since we will not be here I wanted to surprise him today with the cake and his present.  His birthday was December 28.

My next stop was to pick up my grandkids, Kamron and Jaxson in Parsons, my son Marc and wife Jen's children.  Marc and Jen left this morning for a short weekend trip to Las Vegas with friends and the kids will spend the day with us.  I ordered a smoked meat tray from Timbercreek Meats in Parsons for the main course of our meal today.  It include pulled pork, sausage links, smoked chicken and ribs.  One final stop before leaving town was at Walgreen's to pick up a gift card.  

We made it back to Misti's shortly before 10.  The meat went in the oven right away on low heat to warm it up.  Shortly before noon everyone had arrived except our granddaughter Dacy, who had to work today, but she will join us as soon as she gets off work.  Misti made a green bean casserole, DIL Renae provided pecan and key lime pies, an assortment of cookies and two kids of candies, homemade rolls and bread and some deviled eggs.  We  definitely had plenty to eat.

We decided to go ahead and open gifts before lunch since our youngest son Jarred, wife Andrea and daughter Emerson need to leave by 1:45 to head back to Wichita.  The kids all had a great time and were pleased with the gifts they received.  I failed to take any pictures.

I think everyone was ready to eat when we finished so we got right to it.  Everything was so delicious!  Of course we all pieced off and on the rest of the afternoon, too!

As soon as we got all of the wrapping paper picked up, we moved right into the games.  Kids first with the plastic wrap ball.  If you have not played the game, this is what we did.  We started with the main prize in the very center of the ball, and then wrapped plastic wrap around it, and every 4 or 5 times we wrapped around it again, we added another gift.  Gifts included pens, money (bills and coins), candy bars, small bags of candy, light up balls, tic-tacs, toothbrush, lotion, etc.  While the first person is trying to unwrap the ball, the person next to them begins to roll two dice.  As soon as they roll a double the first person has to stop unwrapping the ball and pass it to the person who was rolling the dice.  The dice moves to the next person, and when they roll a double the next person has to stop unwrapping and so on until the wrap is completely unwrapped.  They had a fun time and everyone won something.

Then it was the adults turn - and let me tell you, they get a little wild.  Lots and lots of laughs.  To make it a little more fun, and maybe a little more difficult, they must put on a pair of gloves before they begin unwrapping the ball - sometimes they never get a chance to even start unwrapping the ball because someone has already rolled doubles before or by the time they get the gloves on their hands, and on and on it went until DIL Casey finished unraveling the plastic wrap to win the Grand Prize of $30.  

Jarred and family had to leave shortly afterwards.  Shortly after they left, I asked Brett if his phone had enough battery left to Facetime with our son Matt and his family who live in New York.  He did and in no time we were connected and there they were.  Smartphones can be a great thing to have!  Matt's son Josh had a huge brightly colored, swirled lollipop that was as big as his face.  When he put it up to his mouth to lick it - we could not see his face.  We asked where he got it and he told us at Crackle Bear.  We sure had fun talking to him and his sister Sarah.  

Another great Christmas is in the Peine/Blair family books!  Even though we were tired, it was worth it all to watch the kids having so much fun, and hearing all of the laughter they shared with each other.  Everyone seemed to have a really great time.  I know Dean and I did.  Renae and I helped Misti get things cleaned up in the kitchen and the food put away.  Heath and Brett's families stayed for awhile to visit and Dean and I left about 5:30 to take Kamron and Jaxson back to Parsons.  We returned home a little after 7:00.  Needless to say we were both bushed and were glad to head home to Bentley for some much needed rest.


Sunday, December 31, 2017 - Happy New Year!

I was awake at 4:30 this morning and I woke up itching.  I still have this crazy rash.  It seems to get better in the day and then flares up again at night.  I took a couple of Benadryl and turned the coffeepot on.  I also had to refill my weekly rx container to make sure I had the correct dosage of prednisone for each day going forward.  

I enjoyed my coffee as I read a number of RV blogs from the past couple of days.  It seems I get almost caught up and then I don't have time to read them and they pile up on me again.a

After breakfast, we got ready for church.  Man, was it cold out side this morning.  Brrrrrr!  I'm not made for these cold, artic blasts.  It was a beautiful morning even if it was cold.  As always our pastor provided a wonderful sermon and we had some great music before we parted ways until next year!  

Misti needed to go to Joplin to pick up products for Project Prom at Sam's.  Their group will be manning the concession stand for Recreation Commission basketball beginning next weekend.  She wanted to know if I would like to go with her after church and I agreed.  We took my van and boy did we have the back end of it loaded down with drinks, candy, chips, paper products. etc.  We will be leaving our van here in Oswego, most likely with Misti while we are gone.  Since we have no plans for tomorrow, she took the van to her house and put it in the garage so we don't have to unload and reload it.  

Misti and I really got a workout while we were at Sam's.  The pop and water was quite heavy.  We had one of those large flat carts and it was piled high!  The Sam's in Joplin was recently redone and nothing is where you expect to find it so it was a bit of a scavenger hunt trying to find all the items on her list.  We were lucky enough to get a second workout when we moved everything from the cart into the van.

Since we did not eat before we left, we pulled into Wendy's as we were leaving Joplin.  We both ordered a spicy chicken sandwich, fries and a drink - the sandwich was very, very good.

When we returned to Oswego, Misti took our van home and placed it in her garage.  We'll deliver her car later this evening.  Dean was in the middle of the Chiefs/Broncos football game and wasn't ready to leave right then.  

Once the game was over, I found a few leftovers (ham and beans for me and leftover pizza for him) we could have for our dinner, and did a dandy clean-up job in the refrigerator.  Since Dean enjoyed a large bowl of popcorn before I got home, he wasn't too hungry.

We spent the rest of the evening watching TV and waiting to see if we could make it to 2018.  We haven't been awake at midnight on New Year's Eve for many years and I have a feeling tonight will be no different.

Dean and I would like to wish each of you a very Happy New Year.  Thanks so much for following along with our travels.  It's now 9:57 and at the rate of yawns I am dealing with I'd say I'll be asleep in less than an hour.  Goodnight all!