Merry Christmas!!

It's been an interesting couple of weeks over here to say the least... After weeks and weeks of practice, we finally finished our performance of The Messiah at Lincoln High last Sunday. Immediatey following that, I came down with a bad cold and spent a week getting reacquainted with Kleenex. I was pretty miserable, but managed to drag myself to each of the boys' three basketball practices last week at school, though I only coached one of them for Daniel on Wednesday. Just when I thought I couldn’t feel worse that day, I was leading Daniel’s Wolverines through a practice scrimmage and one of is female classmates ended up behind me just as I was trying to get away from an errant pass and next thing I know I’m doing a half cartwheel over the girl landing rather heavily on the gym floor. I think I got tangled up mostly on her foot, though, so I didn’t really do any damage to her, just my low back, so I’ve been having a great time trying to stand up straight every time I’ve bent over or had to sit on a straight chair. Advil is my best friend this week, I’m afraid. The week hasn’t been all bad, though, as I have been preparing for the Christmas festivities. The boys helped me get most of the out-of-town deliveries to the Post Office in time to arrive by the big day and we managed to get ourselves a nice artificial tree this year, a white Norwegian pine already strung with clear lights, which really looks better in our living room than a traditional live tree. We’ve been slow with the decorations, though. The boys hung candy canes all over it to get it started.

Daniel spent the night at a buddy’s house last night a couple of blocks away, so it was just Aaron and me and an evening of snuggling on the couch as we watched Christmas programs on TV. We didn’t do much of anything today (Saturday) other than hanging out around the house. I did meet my former gym teacher’s son today, Joe Folger, who mentioned Dad was his favorite teacher. He really liked the video Dad made of an old school performance back in the day. He came up from Texas for the holidays, so it was nice to meet him and his son, Brayden.

We’ve been testing out the telescope Aunt Mary Jo sent us and have yet to see the moon over here, though we’ll probably be outside the first night it reappears. I took it out on the street this afternoon here in front of the house and was able to read the license plate on a car some six blocks down the street. Depending on its configuration, it can magnify images to over 500 times their original size. I’m looking forward to seeing the craters on the moon for the first time and showing the boys what’s up there in space.

The boys are now on Christmas break from school for a good week and a half and they’ll be starting their official basketball season in terms of games once they return. Aaron’s practices will be on Mondays and games on Thursday and Daniel’s will be on Wednesdays. I’m one of two coaches for Daniel’s team, the Wolverines, and I’m one of many for Aaron’s team, which at this point is yet unnamed. If you want to see how they’re doing in school or just want to say hi directly, you can now e-mail them at their own e-mail address. If you need their address, feel free “add a comment” to this blog post and be sure to include your own e-mail address in your comment and I will e-mail you their current address. I figure that’s the best way to cut down on spam and ensure they only hear from people they know.

The boys already had their Christmas program about 10 days ago, so we only have the Christmas service to go to at Trinity tomorrow and Christmas Day. I think they may get a break from Sunday School tomorrow, which they really deserve, as they each were recognized this week for a fourth month in a row of perfect attendance. Speaking of church activities, they both participated in the “Candy Cane Lane” program this past Wednesday night at Trinity that was put on by the 6-12 youth for the kids in K-5. They learned the significance of the candy cane colors in Christianity and followed the program with a dinner of mac & cheese with hotdog slices and dessert of their own homemade white chocolate treats sprinkled with candy cane bits.

I’m looking forward to Christmas Eve and no longer having to say “no” several times a day when the boys ask, “Can we open a present???” We will be heading over to the Wignesses on Monday afternoon and spend most of the day over there, so the next couple of days will be pretty fun and entertaining for us. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really snowed up here in weeks, so we just have some ice on the roads and patches of snow here and there, nothing like what it was last year. Not that I’m complaining by any means, though.

May you all have a very merry and blessed Christmas this year and a great start to 2007!!