Just a regular week with some funny things added in

Last Saturday after I wrote my blog post I got started un-decorating the tree. Dick took down the outdoor lights and decorations too.  By end of day there was no sign of Christmas around here.  That's really early for us, but we had the time and knew that we'd better do it before life gets crazy again.  One reason I'm glad to get rid of the tree is so that I can put all the toys in the toy corner again.  While the tree is up the toys all come into our den, right in front of the book shelves that store all my music.   

Sunday morning started out like any normal Sunday morning until we got to church at GBRV.  We were setting up our praise team area and I noticed that Dick had something black slung across his right shoulder.  I thought it must be his tie, that perhaps he had tried to get it out of his way or something.  Later I noticed that it wasn't even attached to his shirt collar, so I walked over to him and asked what he had on his shoulder.  He had no idea what i was talking about.  He reached up and pulled a pair of black sox off his shoulder!!  He said, "There they are!  I was looking for them and had to get another pair out of the drawer!"  I wish I would have made him put them back on his shoulder so I could have taken a picture!  How we laughed!  The crazy thing is that they stayed there through his putting a coat on at home and taking it off when we got to church!  

As usual, after our service at GBRV we went to the 10:45 service at Calvary.  The clouds were spectacular that morning and I was trying to take pictures of them as we made the 15 minute drive. I missed the best shots, but here's one that i did get.

After the service at Calvary we brought Austin and Hunter home with us for the afternoon.  As Dick was helping Hunter out of his car seat I overheard this conversation between them.  

Hunter: You have a beard, Grandpa.  

Dick: Yes, I do.  Who else has a beard?  

Hunter: Daddy has a beard.  

Dick:  Do you have a beard?

Hunter:  No, I have a skin.

Sometime I need to make a video of him talking.  I just can't take how cute he sounds.  He enunciates his words so clearly and carefully, and he raises his voice high at the end of every question - which he asks lots of!  

Dick took this little video on Sunday.  I love how he moves his feet!

Sunday evening there was a football game on TV that Dick really did not want to miss.  The Eagles vs the Chicago Bears.  Of course we love the Eagles because they're a Pennsylvania team.  But we also have had a lot of interest in the Chicago Bears this year because their head coach, Matt Nagy, was a Manheim Central graduate.  Our son Frank played on the same high school football team as Matt did, and our son Anthony played on the same high school basketball team as Matt did.  Matt was one of our high school football heroes.  We all are so proud of him!  The end of Sunday's game was so hard to watch.  Of course his team lost with that excruciating last kick gone bad.  We would have loved to see Matt's team go to the super bowl.  I saw his kicker being interviewed this week on the Today Show.  What a wonderful young man with such a great attitude.  


On Monday morning there was a brilliant sunrise!  

Of course I know the old tale about taking warning when you see red in the sky in the morning.  And sure enough we got sleet around noon.  Apparently the roads were pretty slippery at that time, but I was still here busy cooking.  By the time I left to go over to Anthony and Lori's they weren't bad.  

I didn't have many other reasons to take pictures this week.  Just a regular week of cooking for Anthony and Lori and music prep.  On Wednesday evening I had a worship planning meeting at GBRV and on Thursday evening we had choir practice as usual.  

I was also working on mailing out pictures to our children and our siblings and their children.  In the past I used to write a big update letter about everyone in our family, complete with one of my famous cut-and-paste family portraits.  I would send out about 150 of them!  Now I was just sending out 60-some pictures, no letter, and it seemed like a never-ending chore!!  Getting mailing addresses updated, writing the addresses on the envelopes, slapping a return address label and stamp on each one, sealing the envelopes.   Ugh!!  We're so spoiled by digital everything anymore!  

The picture was the one of Dick and me with Anthony and Lori's family at the Christmas tree at Calvary.  I had added text:  Merry Christmas from the State College Stauffers.  A few days after I picked up the 50 prints from Walmart I realized that they had included foil lined envelopes!!  With prints??  Of course I didn't get them out before Christmas, but fifty people did get them in those nice envelopes!   I decided this week to order some more, but I updated the text to "Happy New Year from the State College Stauffers."  When I picked them up there were no envelopes included.  I mentioned that I had ordered some prints a couple of weeks ago that said Merry Christmas, and that there were nice foil lined envelopes included.  He was surprised and said he supposed they thought that they were a Christmas card.  He didn't offer to include envelopes with this order unfortunately, lol!  Rats,  I should have kept the Merry Christmas on them!  Here's the Happy New Year version of the picture.

If you would like to have one and you email your mailing address to musicaljean@gmail.com I might send you one in the mail!  

One day this week when I was over at Anthony and Lori's I noticed a "book" written by Austin.  I read through it and thought it was so clever and so funny!  He said he did it on his Chromebook at school.  I said, "But you made up the sentences and drew the pictures, right?"  He said he had.  I exclaimed that I loved it and that he could be an author and write books.  He said, "I told you I did it on my Chromebook.  I didn't write it."  I laughed and said,  "Austin, how do you think authors write their books?  On their computers, probably not with pen and paper!"  I loved it so much I decided to take a picture of the cover and each page.  Be sure to see the last picture with that poor gingerbread man hanging halfway out of the T rex's mouth, hahahaha!  

Oh, I have to show you this picture that Dick posted.   Anthony and Lori were at an antique store recently and found this bottle opener that they knew Dick would love!  Just to be funny he hung it up at the window between our kitchen and living room where we usually hang our old Christmas bell.  Needless to say, that is not where it stayed, hahaha!! 

Recently Dick and I sent our "spit in a bottle" to ancestry.com and this week my results came back.  Certainly no surprises!  71% Germanic Europe and 29% England, Wales, and Northwestern Europe.  I've been having so much fun on my ancestry.com app building my family tree and some of Dick's too.  It was easy to see how my dad's parents were second cousins when three of their four parents were Wengers, haha!!  And between Dick and me there are a whole lot of Stauffers in our ancestry.  Of course Dick's dad is a Stauffer, but so was Dick's maternal great grandmother and also my maternal grandmother.   Who knows?  Dick and I are probably related to each other!  I told Dick last night that I think I have found a new obsession! 

Next week Austin will have his 10th birthday!  Ten years ago.  2009, the year our big life transition occurred.  Some of you remember that.  I'm sure I'll be reminiscing throughout this year.  

I had such a cute memory of him five years ago in my FB memories this morning.  I had written:

No end to the quotable quotes when Austin's around.  A while ago he wanted to go outside to show us how he can ice skate on the ice that still remains on our driveway.  He warned Dick,  "Be careful.  Old people can fall."  

Earlier he had asked,  "Why do you live here with no children?"  I said that our children had all grown up and moved to their own homes.  He said,  "There are children that need mommies and daddies."

Awwww.  He obviously was not yet aware of how parts of our family had come to be.     

They say we're getting some snow tonight.  I hope it won't be too much.  Right after the service at GBRV tomorrow Dick and I will be hitting the road.  There's a bridal shower for Jess tomorrow afternoon that Jenn and Destiny and I will be going to while Dick hangs out with Sam and the kids and watches some play-off football.