A New Years Eve to Remember

About 9 or 10 years ago, we hosted an on line video chat room.  Our room became very popular because we took strict control and kept it fun.  It was a safe place for people to come and relax and talk to other people.  The video aspect made it a lot of fun and resulted in some hysterical laughter at times.  We met people from all over the world.  We even had a band from Italy playing live music in our room at times.  A woman from Australia met a man from New Jersey in our room and eventually got married.

One of our best New Years celebrations ever was in this room.  Because we had people from all time zones in the United States and many others from around the world, we were able to celebrate New Years for someone each hour of the night.  Yes, it was a long night.  But one I will never forget.  I miss that room.

The End of the Year

It's been almost a week since our first big snowfall on Christmas Eve.  It's been snowing off and on since then and is snowing pretty good right now.  Hopefully my snowblower will be fixed this afternoon and I can tackle the driveway.

2009 started out with a scare and ended with Norine out of commission.  In between, we did manage several nice trips.  Early spring was New Mexico, late spring Colorado, and fall the Grand Tetons.  Despite a rough beginning and end, 2009 was a pretty good year.  Hopefully 2010 will be even better!

Christmas Snow

Hot tub anyone?

Christmas 2009

A winter storm hit Kansas City Christmas Eve.  It started in the early afternoon with ice and then changed to snow around 5 PM.  The wind kicked up and we had a very snowy, windy night.  Christmas morning we woke up to about 6 inches of snow.  Of course my ole trusty snowblower decided not to start, forcing me to shovel by hand.  How archaic!

Lisa and Bob came over for Christmas dinner.  We fixed salad, honeybaked ham, cheesy potatoes, and Watergate Salad.  Lisa and Bob brought the rolls (there's a story there, but I'm not telling!) and some crackers and dip.

Although I took this picture of Bob, I wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing.  The package he's picking up was for Norine's mom.  Bob proceeded to open it finding a gift of some nice women's perfume.

Lisa and Norine annoyed us with the hamster and chihuahua app on their iPhones.  Actually it was pretty funny listening to those animals repeat everything we said in their tiny voices.

I'm not sure if Bob was yawning or yelling at the new Kansas City Chiefs coach.

Can you believe it?  I actually got Lisa to look halfway normal for the camera.  Usually she does this:

We ended the day with a trip to the nursing home to visit Norine's mom.  We were afraid we might not get up there because of poor driving conditions, but Bob drove like a champ.  Lisa only screamed at him a half dozen times or so.

It turned out to be a very nice Christmas!

The Eagles

Today we braved the cold weather and headed north to the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge.  Every year around the first week of December, the eagles (birds, not singing group) flock to the refuge.  This year was no exception.  It is so fascinating to see these majestic birds in the wild.  We drove the 10 mile loop through the refuge and saw a lot of eagles.  We also had a flock of pheasants fly across the road in front of our car.  The noise of over 100,000 snow geese was amazing as we slowly drove through the refuge.  Tomorrow is eagle days at the refuge.  They were setting up food areas, bus shuttles, and all the other things that go with large crowds.  So glad we beat them to the rush!