Miami Taekwondo Tournament

Tim and JT drove down to Miami on Friday for a karate tournament. I wasn't able to go because I had a baby shower I was helping put together for a friend. JT did great and ended up in a tie breaker for Forms and won! So, he came in 1st for Forms, 1st in Weapons and 2nd in Sparring! He received a trophy for each so he now has 3 trophies from this tournament and 3 medals from the last.

We Bought a New Car

We've been talking about trading in my Avalanche for some time and downsizing to something smaller that gets better gas mileage. With the gas prices at $4 a gallon, there was no way were going to get a decent trade in, so we waited.

We found ourselves with nothing planned for Friday and decided to go "look" at some cars. We both liked the Chevy HHR right away, but also looked at several other makes and models. We ended up liking the HHR the best and went home and did some Internet research. After just a little searching we found a really nice 2008 Nimnicht Chevrolet. I've purchased there several times and have always been happy. After test driving it on Friday and thinking about it and working out the numbers, we went back on Saturday and made a pretty decent trade we were very happy with!

It's going to take some getting used to moving from a big truck to a smaller car, but with lower payments and better gas mileage (plus I love the way it drives) I think I'm going to love it!

It just happened to be white! This makes my 5th white vehicle.
My dad (who also loved white cars) would be proud!

Christmas #2

My sister Shelly and her son Bo came down from Tennessee the day after Christmas. The rest of the kids are all grown up now and had other responsibilities and weren't able to come. It's that time in their lives where we will see less and less of them. It makes me kind of sad, really. Bo has grown up quite a bit since the last time we saw him and he seems to be doing well.

Since they came in after Christmas, we waited to have our Christmas dinner and present opening with the family until Saturday, the 27th at Mom's house. Here's a photo of Mom. She's doing well since she had a pacemaker put in the first part of December.

Since all 3 sisters don't get together very often, we tried to make sure we got a few photos of us all together. I think the older we get, the more we appreciate and enjoy each other's company.

Here's a shot of all of us together at Mom's house.

Happy New Year!

We went to Zambito Oaks Farm (my sister KD's house) for New Year's Eve and the boys set off some fireworks. We just hung out and enjoyed each other's company, eating, talking and watching TV. JT and I left in time to get home by midnight, before the crazy traffic and in time to see the New Year in with Tim since he had gone home earlier.

We went back to KD's again on New Year's Day and hung out for a while before going to Mom's for dinner. We got to see the newest chickens and how big they've grown since they hatched and surprised my sister last month. Momma chicken doesn't like us to get too close, so I steer clear. The boys, JT & Bo, wanted to ride the horses. KD taught them both to ride from as early as they can probably both remember and they both seem to be naturals at it. Maybe it's in their Roman blood?

We then ended up going to Mom's house to eat the traditional black eyed peas for good luck. Mom made us a nice meal and it gave us some more time to sit and visit with each other. We ended up going through some old photos and reminiscing about our childhoods.

Check out the photo we found and posed ourselves now, compared to how we looked 42 years ago! Fun!

Here's wishing all of you a safe, happy, prosperous New Year richly blessed by God!