Christmas Eve

This family is at its finest when I get out the camera. Nobody ever wants to have their picture taken.



I don't exactly have a bevy of photos. Grandma-in-charge was doing more than a few things at one time, my annual multitasking night. It was fun though. We missed the Seattle bunch and Mercedes.

Pink

Well the collection grew again. Last year I posted three cards featuring pink trees. I had been hanging on to these cards for no particular reason except they stood out for having pink trees. I then decided I would call it a collection. (see December 08 on this blog). I received a pink flocked tree from my friend Susan in November, (She shipped it anonymous as if she thought I wouldn't figure it out!) and now the season just got a little pinker: Karlyn gave me the four pink trees decorating my retirement table at work and Nic, my stepdaughter, made me a pink button card.




Susan informed me about my "collection ideas." She thinks my pink trees and candle figurines are nice, but since I dub something a collection I usually wind up with someone adding to it. She thought it would be rather prudent of me to say I collect vintage corvettes or something a little higher on the food chain, you know - GO BIG!!

Candles

Anyone who was young during the exciting fifties and sixties must remember these figurine candles. Last week my sister-in-law Lila gave me an old 2004 Martha Stewart Living magazine because it had a pink tree featured in an article. Well not one to let the magazine go without a thorough going over, I found this article about the little wax Christmas people, Santas, trees, etc.





In my childhood we had the Santa, the choir kids and trees. We also had fair size collection a Thanksgiving candles. In the going through the Christmas boxes I didn't run into any. I suppose Evie thought they had outlived their usefulness and tossed them or pack them up for the Goodwill to become someone new treasures.






Mom may have chucked the Snyder wax heirlooms but I was lucky enough to have the collection restarted when my other sister-in-law Sandra gave me these for Christmas a few years back. I can't rightly recall how the trees arrived but I will assume it was from an auction or the second hand stores that I comb-over in a timely manner. The cost was a whole 10 cents, which in my little people day bought a nice small brown bag of candy or if one were to splurge and buy a candy bar. The following comprise my collection of four.




The article did mention if you run across one of these treasures and it is showing a wee bit of dirt,to take a piece of pantyhose stretched over your index finger and gently rub in a circular motion, but best to test in an area least noticed. Or you can take a Q-tip dampened with soapy water and get in the crevices.

Christmas Photos

With the size of our blended family I thought the easiest way to share photos would be to blog them. So here we go.

The old gray Mare and retired Ron.



Tad and Missy. Tad is still at Lowe's Garden as a landscape designer. Missy is a Radiology Technician at Trinity Hospital. They live in Minot.



Ronald Lee, Jr. serving in the US Army, like his Dad did in the sixties.



Erik is an engineer with CP Rail. He and Nicki live on Myles' and my old farm, same house he grew up in.



Nicki Espeseth, she is Title I aide with Granville Public. She is married to Erik and mom to Collin.



I love this picture of Collin, taken on the ship. He has on Grandpa's sunglasses. He is 4 1/2 in this photo. Collin is son to Erik and Nicole Espeseth.



Deanna, Ron's daughter, with her fella, Loren. Deanna is an esthetician by trade but currently working at a Seattle grocery.



Nicole, wife to Robert and the oldest (by 5 months) of entire crew. A stay-at-home mom to Lainey and Beau.



Lainey is just a plain and simple BEAUTIFUL child. She is 2 1/2 in this photo. Lainey belongs to Robert and Nicole.



Robert and Beau in their matching t-shirts. Beau is about eight months in this picture. His Dad is more than that! Robert is with F5 in Seattle.


Mercedes Anna at eight months. She is Billy and Dani's



Billy and his mama(the one with the stupid grin). He is the oil man and living in Minot.



Karlie Lynn on the first day of her last year of school. WOW!



Carsten absolutely hates to have his picture taken. A rare image.



Lacy, a happy go lucky girl of 12.




MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE ENTIRE CREW!

Addendum: I posted the entire (what I thought was) bunch and then forgot the three at home. There goes the Mom of the year award AGAIN!

Fargo Video

I know it has been a long blog hiatus, just too much going on in the new life - like poor time management. But I did stumble across this clip tonight and want to post it for old Fargo folks. It is kind of an eerie video but it did jog my memory to some events and locals I had forgotten about.

Double click on the underlined and check it out. I had to click on the play arrow to get it to go, otherwise is was a white screen.