Christmas cards 2009

Janae and Janell volunteer

Janell and I have been volunteering at Thanksgiving Point. I get regular emails asking for help and we volunteer for the fun things. Halloween was Barnyard Boo, a carnival for preschoolers or kids that don't like to be scared and this week we were Santa's helpers. I took pictures of Santa and families and Janell mounted them and delivered them.

Snow in Omaha by Kay

Thursday was the third day in a row school was canceled in Omaha. Tuesday it snowed, Wednesday it snowed some more, the wind blew and the temperature dropped below zero. Thursday was just cold and the city is still digging out. I spent the first two days plowing snow. As soon as I got it all plowed I would have to start over at the beginning. I plowed my lots 3 times on Tuesday then spent all day Wednesday moving it out of the way and plowing walks, roads and parking stalls. Of course that was between driving tenants to work, pushing and pulling stuck cars and teaching my Burma tenants about driving in the snow. Many of them have nice cars but have never driven in snow before. Like most inexperienced snow drivers they don't realize spinning your tires as fast as they can does no good. One tenant was stuck in the middle of the parking lot in his nice Dodge Durango 4x4. When I saw him spinning his tires until the rubber smoked I stopped him and motioned for him to let me help. He didn't speak English. I hopped in, shifted it into four wheel drive and slowly straightened it out. I spent about a half an hour getting the car in the picture started this morning so she could get to school. She had not started it since before the snow started falling. Believe it or not she did not leave the hood up overnight. The wind blew all that snow up onto her engine while it was parked with the hood closed. This afternoon I went into an apartment to finish some work and noted it was very cold. I switched the furnace on and started my work. Out of curiosity I went and got a digital thermometer and placed it on the counter while I worked. The furnace had been running a while so I am not sure how cold it actually was but the thermometer dropped to 46 before it started rising.

Victoria Secret and the spoon

I don't usually shop at Victoria Secret but got an email about their cyber Monday sweater sale. 3 sweaters for $30.00 and a free scarf with 20% off that is 33.00 for the 4 items. I was cooking soup and was so distracted I didn't notice my spoon had fallen and was resting on the coil burner and was on fire. I noticed a small flame coming out from under my pan on my electric stove, the spoon handle had caught fire and wa-la it melted. So this is what Victoria Secret did to my cutco spoon (it's next to a normal cutco spoon). Luckily I will send it in to be repaired.

Thanksgiving at the Day's and California trip

Thanksgiving Day in Valencia California with the Day family

Pics: Kay and my sister Debbilyn
Day. Jeremy and Dave make the stuffing and Ryan is the happy overworked dishwasher.

We got "Southern California passes" from Costco, drove to California, and had an exhausting but fun trip. 2 days at Disneyland, 1 day at Seaworld, San Diego Zoo and Universal Studios. Kay was the lone man and drove the whole time -3 hours! Leah, Kay's little sister and her 3 girls plus Kay Janell and I made up our party of 7.











Amber, Erica,Jana, and Leah Lusk

Janell and the totaled Toyota

Firsts for Janell:
accident,
driving to the library by herself,
airbag popping out,
blacking out for a second,
having to give her license to the police officer,
tell her parents she wrecked the car,
talking to paramedics
telling paramedics she was OK,
talk to a police officer
ride in a police car

Farewell to my Toyota Camry. Janell was driving from the school to the library on a two lane road. The cars were going slow and the car in the right lane stopped (a no no) to let a truck exit a business parking lot, Janell kept going and ran into the truck. Her airbag went off (32 mph) and she totaled my car. I was in Omaha arriving home that evening. She called Kay and said the thought it was her fault. It turns out it wasn't her fault! It was the 70 year old guys that exited in front of her. She had to do it all by herself... talk to the police officer, make a statement, remember what happened. The police officer spoke to Kay on the phone and drove her home. My good friend Gayle came over to check on her and tell her she was normal. Our neighbor Brad came over and gave her a priesthood blessing. I was just saying to Kay that my car is getting kind of old..... maybe it is time for a new one....... Ya think?



Seat belt injury. Head ache, bumps and bruises. She will see a Dr. on Thursday

Pre Halloween fun

Janell and I volunteered for Thanksgiving Point's Barnyard Boo. A Halloween Carnival for preschoolers and kids that don't like to get scared. She was the volunteer over the cookie decorating booth and I was in the booth attached, that decorated picture frames. We used Disney parade hats to make our costumes. The kids liked us. A couple times we bumped right into each other's mouths as we weren't used to how long our new heads were.



They had an amazing face painter. Not typical...