Saying Thank You to Those Who Serve

When we lived in Washington, I was fortunate to fall in with two of the most wonderful, caring women I've ever had the pleasure to know. Val, Barb, and I worked together, but we truly became connected when another co-worker (and a pretty darn cool guy!) was deployed with his Guard unit to Iraq. The three of us sent Rob emails and care packages, and we did everything we could to make sure that those who are defending our freedom knew that they were not forgotten.

Rob has since come home and is happily back to work, but many, many other service men and women are not. At this time of year, it is so important that we let them know how much we appreciate their sacrifice. Next week, while we enjoy family, friends, food, and gift-giving, these dedicated soldiers will still be in Iraq or Afghanistan or some other location around the world, away from their loved ones and the safety of home.

Today, Val forwarded an email to me with a really cool (and extremely quick!!) way that we can let those men and women who will spend the holidays serving our country that we have not forgotten them. Here's what she sent:

If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services.

How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! This is a great site. Please send a card. It is FREE and it only takes a second. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Our guys and gals over there need to know we are behind them...hope you join in.

Even if you don't have much time, please consider taking just a minute to say thank you to those who are protecting our right to celebrate the holidays.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's that time of year when every night of the week is spent running to this concert and that recital and the other performance of any kinds. Here's a couple of activities that we had last week.

First, Paige's 6th grade orchestra concert. For those who haven't seen her in awhile, she's the second cello in the front row. Here are two selections from their concert:

Jingle Bells

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

On Friday, Marissa had a dance performance. They did two routines, but she's in the back row in the first one and you can only pick her out every now and then. I love this one though. It's their Christmas (or should I say "holiday") routine and they only started learning it about 4 weeks ago, so I thought they did a great job! Marissa is the second from the right in the front row:

Here Comes Santa Claus

So, I hope you enjoy! And Merry Christmas!

So Long, Mr. Fogelberg

OK, so usually when a celebrity dies, I pause for a second to feel bad for his family and then go on with my life. But this time, it seems a bit different. I was never a superfan of Dan Fogelberg, but his music has always found a way to haunt me.

"Run for the Roses" came out when I was in the 6th grade, at the height of my fascination with horses and horse-racing. I knew every single word as my friend and I would sing it on the playground at recess time. I became aware of "Leader of the Band" as my interest in music was hitting its peak. I found the song inspirational and incredibly sad all at the same time.

So, it is with a heavy heart that I say so long, Mr. Fogelberg. You will be missed, but your music will live on for eternity.

The color purple and other tidbits

Just cuz I know ya'll have been dying to see it, I took a picture of my toe for you. (Try real hard not to notice the hairy big toe. It's cold here right now and every little bit helps!) I actually took this yesterday, and if I'm honest, the photo is a bit disappointing because it looked much more dramatic on Sunday. The shadow on my foot just below the toes is not a shadow at all, but part of the bruise which was an incredible shade of purplie-green last night. Even the toes themselves are looking much less mangled today. But anyway, just because I love you all and want to share so much, here's what my toes looked like on Monday morning.



And now, in other news.....
I finally got the pictures from Thanksgiving off of my camera today. (It's amazing all of the little odds and ends I can accomplish while sitting on a conference call.) In case there's anyone left in the world whom I didn't tell, I hosted Thanksgiving this year. Preparation was traumatic, but the event itself was alot of fun!! The entire Zimmerman clan was here along with my dad's brother's wife's mother, Lorraine. Dad's brother Jim and his wife Jill were supposed to join us, but were forced to cancel their travel plans at the last minute.

Anyway, I uploaded this first picture just because it's so doggone cute! Nothing like a little sisterly affection, right? Somewhere, there are pictures of both me and Laura each with a cheek, but no one grabbed my camera for that one, so someone will have to share with the rest of the class! Daddy???

Along with Thanksgiving, we also threw in a little Christmas along the way. Since we're all going separate directions for Christmas this year, we decided we'd just make Thanksgiving weekend do double duty. So, Laura, Mom and I took the kids to the kitchen and made Christmas cookies.

Laura and I learned a very important Weight Watcher tips....don't try to lighten up cookie dough by using apple sauce in place of shortening or butter. The unfortunate result is that your dough takes almost twice the recommended amount of flour in order for it to be firm enough to knead or roll out, but when you add that much flour, your cookies end up more like bread than cookies. Ah, well. They're still really cute, and in the end, we've discovered that they make great coffee-dunking cookies!

So, anyway, here's a few pics of the cookie making that I thought turned out really good.
















And here's one of Jerome Decking the Halls....or wrapping garland around my staircase.





Until next time!