... to... well a whole bunch of places.

Well sorry for my little sabbatical, I'm just going to put up a bunch of pics and do a little information dump.We will start with Christmas eve, which happens to be my dad and his brother's birthday. (His brother is, I think, eight years younger.) So as tradition holds, the whole family goes out to brunch. We usually go to the same place but this year we branched out and went to Trotter's in Auburn. Nothing special really. In the evening everyone reconvenes at my grandma's house where there are even more traditions to uphold. The first thing we do is host the Murray Family Christmas Program. Yes, everyone generally has to do something, it can be a reading, something musical, a game, a skit... the list can go on. This has been going on in my family for, oh, 50 years or so, probably a little less. Anyways, my family did a shadow play, I was the narrator in case you don't recognize my distinct silhouette. My uncle Clayton (the other birthday boy) played the accordion. He is a pianist who likes to pick up other random instruments from time to time. My second cousin and other uncle did a skit. There were a few other things, but you get the gist of it. The next tradition is the Murray gift exchange. I managed to convince my family to play it a little differently this year. You can ask me about it if you want to know. I made out pretty good with a LCD digital picture frame set. Not too bad compared to what my cousin ended up with, a coin sorter. The birthday boys blow out their candles and we eat dessert which always includes coconut ice cream and something else. We have dinner and then open any other gifts. It makes for a full evening, but definitely memorable. Here is the whole fam.

Christmas Day! Yippee!! The day you can always be a kid! We don't do anything different really as far as opening presents. After all the presents have been opened we have a Christmas brunch and toast the new year. This year we went to my Uncle and Aunt's house in Kent. Here we have a feast like no other, bigger than any rare roast beast! Mmmm. It was a little chaotic because someone decided that instead of passing the dishes around we would pass our individual plates. Sounds like it should work, but knowing my family we had people standing up and dishing up plates or passing them three people down. It was pretty funny.The major tradition we have on this side of the family some say is disgusting, but whatever, it's my family. Some time ago my grandma brought a fruitcake meaning for it to be eaten. Well no one ate it, so it was put into the back of a cupboard. The following year it was brought back out and passed on to someone else as a joke. That is not so bad, but this has been going on for 11 years! Yep, the same fruitcake. My mom has hot glued some of the candied fruit back on.My uncle made a case for it this year so it will forever more be preserved in the family. My grandma and grandpa got the fruitcake this year. It's come full circle. We had a gift exchange in which I got a sweet hand chopper thing, it is really cool. Then there it the dessert buffet. Wow, everything is amazing. Pumpkin, cheesecake, lemon torte, sour cream raisin... MMMMM!!! My cousins know how to make the desserts! Both families play a lot of games so both nights usually include games. We have a blast no matter what we do really. I love it!

... back to the kitchen of old.

Back to the days of Cream of Wheat and Wonder Bread. When a woman was serene in her kitchen. My friend Amy and I wanted to visit the good ole days with our retro style aprons. We actually made them ourselves like three years ago. The patterns that we used had these old classic 1950 pictures of women in the kitchen. So we tried to reenact the photos with the help of our aprons. That yellowish glow in my bowl is butter, not gold.

"Are you taking a picture of me and my wonderful cookies?"

The finished product!

Ah, the the joy of enjoying your own cooking.

We are planning to have another 1950's kitchen reenactment after Christmas. We have to collect a few more props; jeans and sweatshirts don't quite work for a woman in the 1950's.

... to a big mud puddle.

I didn't really know we had such big mud holes on our property, but obviously we do. A friend of Kathryn's, who will remain anonymous, decided to "get a little mud on his tires." Well he got some, and then some. It is actually all *Kathryn's fault , but she will say that it is my mom's fault. Anyways we won't get into that, the jeep was stuck.
So Alison had to get her truck to tow it. We had some help from one of Alison's friends too. The two guys seemed to know just what to do. (Funny how guys know that stuff.) It turned out to be a family outing, Alison, Kathryn, my mom, and of course myself all came out to watch the removal of the jeep from the mire. The real key to getting the jeep out though was us gals. The boys could not get it out with their mere trucks and knowledge. Us gals had to pile in the back of the truck, probably added maybe 400 pounds. Doesn't matter how many pounds I guess because it worked. So I can honestly say it was basically the girls who got the Jeep out. It was good fun watching the guys make an attempt at it. Apparently my aunt had fun watching it from her window too. Thanks "Mr. J" for coming out and giving us gals some excitement.

*So the story is that when Kathryn was interviewing my uncle about his excavating business a week ago she tried "smoothing" out a little bump in the earth with his trackhoe and actually made it quite a bit worse. After all this rain it has filled up with water and turned into a big mud hole. Well apparently when Kathryn and her anonymous friend got to the house no one was home, so to avoid being alone in the home they went out to get the mud on their tires. Kathryn I guess advised "Mr. J" about the muck, but he claims that she spoke up as he was falling into the abyss. So that is the story, you can draw your own conclusions. 

... to GTC Alumni Reunion.

Ah, the joy of meeting friends again and reminiscing of days gone by. Generation Training Center's annual alumni reunion was this past weekend and of course I had a blast. The evening festivities start off with worship and a short time of sharing. I love being able to worship and share with those that I am close with. 

The fun really began when everyone went to Centralia Bowl to practice our mad skills at bowling. (Or in my case the lack of.) But skills or no skills it was a fierce game. Carissa nearly beat me, but I pulled ahead with a whopping score of 80. Crazy I know.

The fun continued on at the Rollerdrome. (For those of you who are thinking I meant to type rollerdome, you are mistaken. A drome is actually an oval arena equipped with a track.) Yes this has become the tradition to take a blast into the past and relish a pastime our parents did when they were kids. We did all the usual stuff, the birdie dance, the hokey pokey, speed racing, limbo, races, and the new one this year was racing on these little cart things. It took me a long time to figure it out, but apparently they move by just moving side to side. I don't know. But it was fun when someone pushed you. We had a blast catching up with everyone and hearing what has been going on. It was a great night. Can't wait for the next one!

... to McFamily Night!!!

Besides my sister bringing home extra cookies and apple pies, one of the perks of her working at McDonalds is that we get to go to McFamily night! It was soo cool! We got to have a tour, a behind the scenes look at McDonalds. I got to see where all the meat is kept, the grill, the burger-makin table, and the McFlurry machine. (Which is, I hear, pretty dangerous. Apparently people have gotten gashes and black eyes from it! Wahoa!) The basement is what we really wanted to see. We had only heard rumors of the basement, but now I can testify that it is real, I walked in it! See the mass of buns and french fry containers?! (I took a small fry wrapper as my personal momento.) Yeah, the basement was a highlight.
Kathryn later let me touch the order buttons, it was a rush. I was very impressed with McDonalds, very well organized and clean. Although I did see a random meat patty on the floor of the freezer in the basement...
To top of the whole evening, families got to order whatever their hearts desired, including dessert! It was glorious! I am so proud of my little sis, going to school, workin, and going to more school. And she was a very good tour guide. And props to Emily, just because you are reading this and leaving me a comment... 

I'm kind of hungry for an apple pie now...

And here is my kids church group singing for the adults in the evening service. Aren't they the cutest bunch of kids?!

... to the must see event of the year!

Come one, come all to the Rock, Paper, Scissors Invitational!
That is how we built up our tournament at work. We had a potluck today, basically for the fun of it. There was so much food, I'm still full. For the "games" we had a rock, paper, scissors tournament. 16 will enter, one will win. It was awesome. A few people didn't know how to play! I was floored and quickly remedied the atrocity. I naturally entered and was first up against Tammy, the bonding queen and who was one of those who had never played. Best two out of three. I felt a little bad beating her, but not too much. The tournament went on, and I came up against Ken, he's such a gentleman. He looks like a pro, but I put him in his place. Feeling a winning streak come on, I took out Josh too. (I totally annihilated Josh last Saturday in a snowball fight at 7 in the morning at work. He's such a funny guy though, practically like a brother.) I was in the finals!! I could almost taste the victory, I saw the glory, I felt the medal in my hands... But I was robbed!!! Todd was declared the winner. Todd is one of our QC guys, he has to be one of the most patient guys out there because I ask him questions all the time. Don't let his looks fool you, he's an animal at rock, paper, scissors, but a worthy opponent.
It was a great day at work, we had to get a group photo to top of the merriment. But as all group photos go, we are missing several people. They're still a good looking bunch that I love to work with. See what you are all missing out on!!

... to... argh, what the?.. [sounds of fighting and blades clinging.]

Whew, that was close. A ton of ninjas just attacked me, I barely managed to dart their nunchakus. I'm sure they will be back, so I will make this quick. 

This is the account of the white ninja on the Day of the Ninja. 

It was a glorious day. The white ninja was back in full glory, even more deadly than before. The day was an average white ninja kind of day. I went to work at Leonard's Metal like usual. But the squeeze was not working so I threw it across the work center and flipped onto the lunch table and began chopping it to bits. When my fury had subsided, I finished cleaning some parts and threw them into the oven only to discover there was a black ninja in the oven, poised to attack. He jumped out and flipped onto my work table. We jumped and flipped all over the plant, leaving a trail of destruction. I chased him out of the plant and realized I was late for class. 

I hurried to my car, but found my lock jammed. So I cut off the roof of my car and hopped in. As I drove down the road I saw two black ninjas flipping through the city streets beside my car. I swerved off the road and jumped out. I threw some throwing stars at my enemies, a ran after them. I may have killed a few galkers in my fury; I really don't keep track of that kind of frivolous information. 

I finally arrived at class, but I knew they would be back. I kept one eye on the teacher and one eye on the door. During break, I started toward the vending machine when suddenly my teacher wiped out some nunchakus. She was the ring leader! I knew it! I braced myself and drew my sword. I chopped up all her precious graphing calculators and papers. The overhead projector is now in four parts. I don't think I will be seeing some of my classmates anymore. They all ran out of the room screaming and weeping in terror. One by one, her black ninjas were no more. The math building is littered with their bodies.  I finally escaped after pulling the projector screen down on my teacher/ninja. 

I raced out to my new topless car. I only made a few stops on the way home to do some damage. I blew up a gas station, left Safeway in ruins, and turned the library upside down. I arrived home with out any more attacks. Now all I wanted was to eat a piece of crumb cake. But then just when I was about to cut out a piece...

So yeah, I had a busy day. I will have to tell you the rest when I feel like, right now I feel like cutting something up...

Random Thing #2

So I just want to complain about a bruise that I have had for over two weeks. Yep, I got it at the broomstick hockey game on the 21st of November, it's the sixth of December now. What in the world?! Why do I bruise so easy?! I barely remember falling down, and even then it was not that big of a fall. Good grief.  Doesn't that just look nasty?

...to Enumclaw's Christmas Parade.

I have always wanted to be in a parade. To wave at all the dear little children, have people screaming at you, wishing they were in your place. Ah, the dream. It finally came true for me. I was in a parade. I got to be in the Enumclaw Christmas Parade, which is actually quite big. I think there were 80 floats, or something around there. My uncle owns his own excavation business, so he has a dump truck he drives in the parade. He has my other uncle's band playing on the back. I got to be his passenger. I felt like a celebrity through the whole night. All these little kids wishing you a merry Christmas. I waved the best princess wave I could muster. It was an extra magical night because it was snowing too. Despite the snow there was quite the turn out. Everyone should be in a parade someday.

P.S. Tomorrow is Day of the Ninja so be careful going around corners and walking in dark alleys.