Christmas Tradition: TubaChristmas

Tucker Jolly himself! Yes, that is his REAL name!

It's like Where's Waldo....can you find me?

TubaChristmas is a strange obsession:

I got out my TubaChristmas buttons to take the above photo and was shocked to see I've played in 20 TubaChristmases over the years. WOA! Canton, Akron, Medina, Wooster, and Columbus, but none compare to Tucker Jolly's Akron TubaChristmas. It is the oldest one in Ohio and by far the best. I've only missed one since 10th grade! I'll tell you of a guy who has missed NONE: Tucker Jolly. In fact this was the 30th straight year Tucker stood up there directing the mass of 500 tuba players and the Mayor of Akron even declared December 19, 2009 as Tucker Jolly Day. He's a tuba professor at the University of Akron. Let's all hope he never retires!

THE LONGEST WEEK OF MY LIFE

The week before Christmas break has got to be THE LONGEST WEEK of the year BY FAR. I think this week felt like 250 days long and today felt like 300 hours long and 10th period felt like 10000 minutes.

But now I'm home on my couch and life has turned good!

TWO WEEKS OFF HECK YEAH!

In other news, I think the ice on the pond beside our house is WAY thicker than last Sunday and I'm ready to skate once darkness falls (can't let the neighbors see me haha).

1.5 Inches

Being married to an icefishing fanatic combined with having a pond 30 feet from our backdoor has its advantages. Nick is out there everyday chopping holes, drilling holes, jumping up and down, all while dreaming of when he can sit on a bucket and catch a fish through the ice.

This week cold night temps created the smoothest ice I've seen in at least 8 years. Bad news: it was thin and probabably not going to get to the "safe" 3 inches I'd need it to be in order to skate. Well we are both crazy so you can pretty much figure out what happened!! I had towels on hand in case of an 'accident' and I stayed near the edge, where if I went through I could still stand up, but nothing went wrong and it was totally great!

Back in the Game!!

For some reason, my house swallowed my GPS. Along with my purple bathing suit, my password sheet, and a mix of other things. Yep, haven't seen it since October! In fact I'm not totally sure it made it back from our trip to NYC. I saw it in Scranton PA but never again. Nick swears he saw it in our house after the trip but he's a guy and what does he know? LOL.

So yeah. Not being able to go geocaching was a killer because once pumpkins and cross country are over (late October), geocaching season starts (ok there really is no such thing except in my mind). This curse turned into a blessing because we got a NEW ONE AND I LOVE IT!!

Dakota 20.

Touch screen and the best part is it saves all the notes and hints right in there so I don't need to carry around a GPS and my I-pod anymore. Even better: the touch screen works with gloves on. :)

Up there are some pics from this weekend; we went up towards Cleveland to look at a used truck (yep Nick is considering upgrading because his S-10 has been beat to shreds over the years!). We didn't have all day but enough time to see some cool things.

Compost and Christmas Cards

What do we do in November, when the season has passed and the cover crop is sprouting and there is nothing better to do? Drive up and down streets stealing people's leaf bags! LOL. Yep, we do this quite often in the dark and it is actually quite fun. Not as fun is then slicing them open and dumping them on our larger-than-life compost pile.

What else do I do? FILL BUBBLES LIKE 2 HOURS A DAY!! Blech. With the ammount of seed requests I've been filling on a daily basis, I came to the decision yesterday that I am not doing Christmas cards this year. I am too poor from already spending $40+ on postage that the people are short on, plus my hand is permanently cramped from writing, plus just the concept of mailing even more stuff is making me crazy. Don't be offended if I don't send you a card, just be understanding and I'll be back in the game next year for sure!

Random Blog Link

Happened upon a few new blogs of young couples lately. This girl had been trying to get pregnant since last March and by following her blog the last month or so I could tell she was still optimistic but getting frustrated. I admire her so much for her openness to talk about this with the world! But it made that special moment that much sweeter when she could finally tell everyone her good news.


http://thisplaceisnowahome.wordpress.com/


Not only would I not be able to talk about an issues like that with the world, I don't even think I could talk about it with my mom! I'm trying to figure out how long I would be able to hide a pregnancy from my family. 1 month, 2 monthes, 3 monthes, 4? 5 monthes, 6 monthes, 7 monthes, more???? Ok I know 6 and 7 would be tough (LOL) but seriously!! I avoid awkwardness and how awkward would it be telling my DAD?!! I do see my parents everyday; EVERY SINGLE DAY. How long until you think they'd figure it out?

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Yep Christmas is here a little early this year but awesomely worth it: I FINALLY FOUND AND PURCHASED HANGING SNOWFLAKE LIGHTS!! My front porch was made for hanging snowflake lights but for some reason I just could never find them in the stores. THIS WAS THE YEAR (Thank-you Lowes). LOVE THEM! They even twinkle :).