Traveling Passport

Family bonding today. Feels awesome.
A nice lazy day, and excited that I have 3 more to go.
My daughter and hubby have been teaching me how to play PS3. Some game where we are killing Zombies.
The games that people play! Gheez.

I can certainly understand how kids get stuck in front of these games for hours on end. Certainly not a game for younger children. My days of playing video games ended with Mortal Combat and Streetfighter. Lol So yeah, I was a bit rusty and anxious to pick it up so I could fit in. After all, I gotta be the cool mom. Lol But after my fingers got sore from gripping the controller (probably too tightly), as I was pressing random buttons trying to remember what controlled what.

I took a break.



Where is Furmans Passport?
After all, we paid for ExpressPost so we could track this expedited delivery.
Express, yeah right!
And we mailed it from Windsor instead of waiting till we were back in Toronto because we thought that might help. Yeah right, again!

Check it out:

As I was saying....we mailed it from Windsor because we thought it would help. Guess we were wrong there. Lol Maybe we should have just mailed it from Detroit. Who knows?

Notice how our item just backtracked and followed us home, longer than it took "us" to get home. If only I had known! We could have mailed it from home on the 23rd and saved a few days. Smh The lady at the post office told us that mail was being picked up on the 24th. Just look at this travelling passport. Oh well. At least now, it's in the hands of USPS. I'm pretty sure USJFKG is in New York, getting ready to fly out west to LA.

Gee, I wonder if I can get a refund for the EXPRESS service I paid for? Lol I know we are in holiday season and all. I just thought the mail would be moving faster, not slower. They should have changed that Expected Delivery for the holidays. I'm just sayin! I'll keep watching it though. But I know the stress begins when they send it back. That, will be untrackable, yet probably faster.

Guess we kinda know where Furman's passport is.

Anyways....getting back to my family, but I thought i'd take a break from the video game to check the tracking on Furmans Passport and Blog. lol

Looking forward to church tomorrow. Not going to double up though. lol
The next few days...have no clue.
Gotta squeeze in a visit to Mom. She's already missing me. lol I'd love to take her to see the movie

Django Unchained, but it's a long movie and I'm thinking she might not be able to keep still that long. hahaha Those who know her, know what I am talking about. lol

Still have no plans for New Years Eve.
Might have to be a quiet one cuddling with my hubby, which ain't all bad. :)  Save us some $$$$$
Just looking forward to having our first New Years Eve together...whether we are home or out and about.
Besides, everyone in my home has been getting sick with cold (started with me of course)...we might need to stay in to keep rested.

Have an awesome weekend everyone.
God Bless

Our 1st Christmas Together - Mr/Mrs

Keepsake Ornament I bought
Starting a tradition for our memory tree.
I will put the picture below in it.

What a wonderful Christmas!
Together with my children, my husband AND my mom...I had it all. Best gift I could ask for. Soo blessed.

I had to work a full day on Christmas Eve and then had a full evening planned. Missed Christmas Eve service at church to attend my sisters Christmas Eve Dinner, but she already suggested that I double up on Sunday to make up for it. After all, I need church. lol Trust me on that one. Oh...she just had an answer for every excuse I could give to not attend her gathering. It was kinda funny. Smart girl! So, I went with my family and mom in tow. Best gift I could give to my mom. We had a good time. My sisters husband went all out with the food, making YouTube videos about his preparations. It was so cute. He really is a nice guy.

He was working those antlers!

And Furman, well Furman knows how to make anywhere a party! Always has.
Party really doesn't start till he rolls through it. haha
Love my husband!
                                   

Me and Mom

Christmas morning when I woke up...I swear that Santa Claus had been to my home. I was shocked....because it wasn't me! We didn't get home from the Christmas Eve Dinner until the wee hours of the morning, so my daughter had stayed up to wrap gifts. God Bless Her!! I know she was tired because she didn't wake up until mid afternoon. lol We had to wait till everybody was awake to open gifts. In the meantime, Furman got right to it...baking pies and a lovely chocolate cake with buttercream icing. In light of our weekend for Furman's Christmas Surprise and Christmas Eve Dinner at my sisters, I really didn't have time to cook our own meal. That was ok though, because in the afternoon on Christmas Day we went to a dear friends home to have dinner with her family. Brought an apple pie and cake with us to dinner to share...but saved a cherry pie for home. Our friends children absolutely love Furman, calling him Uncle Furman to boot! They are a great family. Love them! Thank you for having us.

Anyways, opening gifts is always fun. This really was a year for me. My daughter completely spoiled me. She bought me a Persona (like Pandora) Charm Bracelet and started me off with a few charms that have meaning. She is so sentimental like myself. What a kid! Can't wait to collect other charms. Oh, and she got me an absolutely beautiful Bed in a Bag that I had wanted..after she figured out what a Bed in a Bag was. hahaha And I have to mention the hard work she put into getting something special made for me the family. She said she had taken notice that there really weren't enough photos of my son in the house...so she took measures to fix that.

Check it out!

"Grandma, I hope you enjoy this
money to do as you please, Love.."

Oh....but the absolute funniest moment on Christmas Day came from my mom opening her granddaughters gift. A box that even had me wondering what was inside. So..when it was my moms turn, she took to the tearing. lol
This is was she got (to the right).....that had us cracking up!  Had to high five my daughter for originality. My mom made off like a bandit with more money to add to the money we had already given her.


Like I already said...what a lovely Christmas! Thank you Lord.

Boxing Day...we went out as a family too! My son included which is rare, since he is a young man that has better things to do than hang with family. lol But yeah...we hit some stores and a very popular mall. It was crazy. Or as Furman was saying..."Absolutely Ridiculous. This is no sale!"  I know, I know. They jack up the prices before taking money off to really make you think you are getting something. lol Yeah..he made it clear he doesn't like Boxing Day shopping. Guess I will have to leave that to me and my daughter to do. lol She was on a mission. She knew what she wanted, and got it - pretty much. First store we went to cost a total of almost $600 and we hadn't even hit the mall yet. But we met up with some friends after we dropped off a new 32" television, and a PS3 Game system to go with the Xbox Kinect my daughter already had. Gheez! My daughter went crazy with the shopping this year. We were even able to help out a friend that we met at the mall later, which was great. My friend and her family were out shopping at the same time and we kept in contact via text message so that we could meet up. Well, it just turned out that something they were looking for was sold out where they were but just happened to be in stock where I was. lmao Was able to pick that electronic up for them and save them a bit of money on the taxes. But Furman and my son couldn't wait to get out of the mall. Oh man! The crowds really were crazy. Fights in the parking lot over parking spaces. When we were leaving, the lineup of cars still trying to get into the mall was hilarious. And I have always hated shopping on a regular day!

So now, i'm back at work. It may have been a Black Christmas but we certainly got snow today. Thank goodness a lot of people are off on holidays which made my drive to work manageable. I would have rather have stayed home...but of all nights, our furnace died last night so our house is quite chilly right now. lol Thanks to my daughter, my bed was really cozy. Then again, it usually is these days...I got Furman.

Well, Christmas may not have been what Furman is used to....but it's what i'm used to. And...it was awesome having him here to share in our Christmas madness. Now...to get ready to celebrate the New Year.  Hmmmm? What to do? What to do?

Before I end this post, I just want to say a sincere Thank You to my sister and her husband for including us in their Christmas Eve Dinner. With all that we've gone through the last 4 yrs I did not attend my sisters recent nuptials. So, being at her home for Christmas Eve Dinner was definitely not something I saw in the cards. But, God works in mysterious ways. I guess it was time. Moving forward - small steps. We can both say now that we have celebrated our first Christmas Eve with our husbands as Mr and Mrs - together. Much love to both of our husbands for their part in supporting and making this day possible for us all.
Sending my sister some love, and wishing her and her hubby all the best for 2013.

                                                     

Furman's Christmas Surprise

Well....I pulled it off.
Thanks to a wonderful lady friend and her family.

I've been planning this Christmas Gift to Furman for some time now. I mean the plan went way back to before In Advance of your Birthday. Our friend got in contact with me about an NFL Game in Detroit on December 22nd - Falcons vs. Lions. Without hesitation I jumped at the opportunity to secure some tickets to take Furman. After all, the man loves football and it doesn't matter if it's NFL, CFL or whatever. He would love this!! This was the first time I didn't have to worry my pretty little head about what to get this man as a gift too. So, that was the plan. It was a two for one deal actually. We got to visit and hang out with our friends that live in Windsor and all go together, because they were coming too! It was a fluke that the opportunity for CFL Playoff tickets came up after this plan was in place. How is that for a double dose of football in a short period of time? lol

Well, we hightailed it out of the city Saturday morning where the road conditions at home were absolutely horrible. Was not happy to see snow. Low and behold, after driving about 15 minutes on the highway, we were in the clear for the rest of our ride. Oh, but I don't think it was only my neck of the woods that got punished because around Chatham we started counting all the vehicles in the ditches we passed probably from the night before. Oh yeah. About 8 cars and 7 jackknifed tractor trailers. Hope nobody got hurt.

Once in Windsor we got to enjoy a lovely meal with wonderful people. We had previously plotted on how I was going to give Furman the news about the game so I was waiting for "the queue". He had no clue. In fact, he didn't know he was even going to Windsor until I HAD to tell him. We recently received the Passport Request from Immigration and naturally, we'd do what was needed to complete the Immigration Process the next day if we could. But, he needed his passport to cross the border for the game so we had to hold onto his passport a little bit longer. I had to tell him why...just left out the Football Game part. lol

The Queue - Dessert! Yup...our creative friend decided that she was going to serve us ice cream cake that was decorated with a football and said Falcons vs. Lions. When she came toward us with the cake, I gave Furman his Christmas card that was a little mushy but had those football tickets in it. Yup...he was thrilled!! Oh, but to make it even more fun, our friend got us football jersey's to wear too! That was part of the plan. So, Furman got to wear an Atlanta Falcon jersey to cheer for the winning team, and I stuck with cheering for the Home Team - Detroit. lol It was a bit of an inside joke with Furman and I too, because I previously cheered for Boston when he was cheering for Miami in the NBA Playoffs. lol

                                            

We definitely made the weekend an experience. We parked the car by the Hilton after we checked in and all took the local bus over the border. I've never done something like that before. It sure saved a lot of headache i'll tell ya! And as usual, there are always some characters on the bus. Can you imagine? Taking the bus so you can drink and not worry about driving. Oh yeah...the bus had characters. Luckily, we had no issues with Immigration on either end. But we were ready for them anyways!

Detroit Lions vs Atlanta Falcons

12-22

Falcons

31

-

18

Lions

Unfortunately Detroit lost the game as was kind of expected with Atlanta's current record. But, we had a great time anyways. Furman sat in the middle of a bunch of Lions fans cheering for the opposing team. A spec of red in a sea of blue. lol Not sure how safe that was in Detroit, but he did it and wasn't obnoxious. lol All in good fun.

Overall, it was a great weekend. I'm still sick though. After meeting our friends for breakfast on Sunday we went to visit family of mine for a while. I wouldn't dare go to a town where family lived and not try to visit. No Way! Oh...but we made sure to find Shoppers Drug Mart first. I not only wanted some cold medication, but we wanted to pop Furman's Passport in the mail to the Los Angeles Immigration office as requested. Didn't want to put it off any longer. We sent it ExpressPost so we could track it there. Just sucks that they will send it regular mail back to us because we are in Canada. So, prayers requested for it's safe delivery and return! Let's see how long this takes now.

Now....time to get ready for Christmas!!  Oh boy!
I have to work today and then i'll pick up my mom before I head home and then off to my sister's house for Christmas Eve Dinner. Did I mention that I have no clue when I am going to find time to get my own Christmas Dinner together? Just because i'm visiting doesn't mean I don't need to have dinner. We'll be visiting others on Christmas Day too. It's a crazy season. Certainly not what Furman is used to.  Unfortunately, you can't accept all the visiting invites. My long time childhood friend invited us to Christmas Eve Dinner as well. Problem is, it conflicts with my sister's dinner. As much as I would love to go to my friends dinner, i'm thinking that my sister's dinner would be the right place to be. After all, I gotta think about my mom's happiness too. And after Happy Birthday Mom, I know that us all being together for Christmas Eve Dinner would make mom happy. It's not always about me! Sick or not...i'll go, if at least for a little while.

Wish me luck getting through the evening!  
Hate being sick.
Twas the Night Before Christmas  (Classic)

End Of Days

Got a lot to do before tomorrow, the 21st!

This had me cracking up!

     

After all, according to the "hype"...it's the End of Days! Smh.

So....i'm going to get my hair done so I look just right! Maybe a new outfit too. (I'm really just trying to step up my game for the New Year lol)

Does anyone know what time this is supposed to happen? lol

Really and truly, the End of Days is no laughing matter. I believe that the day will truly come (call it what you want) but not when people predict it. Definitely not on Friday! Would you be ready if it was? What would you be doing to prepare? Something like Ron Hubbard is doing? lmao Mayan Doomsday Survival Bunkers. Definitely not reading my blog. lol Unless maybe you were already in one of these bunkers waiting (with wi-fi of course) or escaped the fury and well...... lol This guy really believes a bunker could save him and his family. Personally, I wouldn't think so. He is not Noah, and that is no Ark. lol 

That's like trying to hide from God. And trust me...you can't do that.

                                                         

Found this online that I thought was interesting. Phophetic Signs that we are in the End of Times. Things that make you say hmmm. 

                                                          

Anyways....I've got an awesome weekend planned for my hubby, that I expect to carry out. Hopefully I wont be too sick. (Yes, its a comin!, I can feel it. Where are the cold meds? lol) My hubby knows that he needs his passport (why we aren't able to send it to Immigration as requested quite yet), and that we'll be in Windsor for the evening visiting some great people. That's it. That's all he needs to know, for now. In the meantime, as Christmas quickly approaches (because the 21st theories are crazy), I've got some errands to run that I can't run on the weekend. You know, since i'll be having fun out of town after the 21st. But, I was serious about that new doo for myself! Not quite sure what I'm going to do yet...but I'm wanting a change. A New Attitude! (classic)

                                       

So, I'll wish everyone an awesome weekend from now.
Get that last minute shopping done!
You are brave if you are out there this weekend. lmao
  Oh..Hell naw!  Not me!

Happy Birthday Mom

What an absolutely awesome weekend.
I couldn't have planned it better myself.
Oh, wait a minute.... I did. Lol

Moms 64th birthday is today so I thought we'd take advantage of the weekend to really celebrate her birthday. Do more than we could have done for her on a weeknight after work. And that we did!

My plan was to follow what I did for her last year, with a twist.
So, I picked her up mid afternoon for a hair appt I made at Spa Jewell. Almost messed things up though. Took mom for a 1pm appt only to find out that I was supposed to be there for 11am. Golly! I don't know how I messed that up. But...lucky for us, Jewell took her on. It was for moms birthday! So, she took moms hat off and BANG! Lmao. She had her work cut out for her. lol She was earning her money today!!





I had to crack up because it took only 10 minutes, if so much, for mom to mess up her new doo. She put her winter hat back on. I gave her "the look" and she laughed as she told me she had to keep her head warm. She gets cold easy. Oh well. I can't say $80 went completely down the drain because her hair is more manageable now, for a while.

So, off we went to go kill some time before heading to the nail salon. Had to, in order for my plan to come together. That killing of time cost me $45. Lmao. Mom and I went to a mall near the nail salon. Walked around a bit, and I bought a couple of sweaters. Around the time my surprise would be just about ready was when we headed to the nail salon.

Well, mom was sitting in the spa chair getting her much much much needed pedicure when her surprise arrived. That Asian lady doing the pedicure, worked for her money too! This is a place I've been going to for about 10yrs so they knew me and were pleased to pamper mom for her birthday. They did it last year too. But I clearly need to bring mom more often. Anyways, as I was saying...as mom was kicking back getting her feet rubbed, my sister walked in. Mom didn't notice her until she got closer. If only I could have captured that moment on film. PRICELESS! For the three of us to be together...meant the world to my mom. I knew it, which is why I wanted to make it happen for her birthday. I was pleased. Seeing my mom filled with joy was like celebrating my own birthday, and I got a nice manicure too.

The evening wasn't over yet.

Naturally, I had to end the day with dinner. My son recommended a place to go eat, Federicks that serves Hakka Cuisine. I couldn't do the usual buffet since last time we went for Chinese we got food poisoning, Double Dose of Sick. Lol. So, we all met at the restaurant. What I mean by all, is that my hubby and my son met up with my sisters husband to hang out a bit and joined us for a great meal and another surprise for mom. She loved it! She didn't know they were joining us. And, she hasn't seen her grandson in a while so she was extra extra happy. Another PRICELESS moment. Oh, and the food.....oh man. I gotta go back to this restaurant....it was sooo good.  Great recommendation son. We had a great time, and I think I can speak for everyone. Only wish my daughter was with us too. That was part of the plan that fell apart, she had to work.

Special Thank You to my sister, her husband, my son and my hubby for helping to make this day a great success.

So, I stole mom for the evening so she would get to see her granddaughter too. Had her sleep over my house so I could take her to church with me in the morning. But, something my sister mentioned at dinner got my wheels turning. That being said, I changed our church plans and took mom to First Baptist Church instead of the church I regularly attend. This, is the church I was raised in so it's kind of like the family church. My little cousin was performing in a Christmas Play so I was happy to bring some support. We not only surprised my sister by showing up, but we surprised my cousin and a few others that we haven't seen in a while. The play was soo cute. My little cousin had a solo and everything. (Got it on tape) And, it was so nice to see some familiar faces.

Today, I am going to finish off mom's birthday celebration by joining her to do her favorite thing - BINGO! Oh mannn....can you imagine if she won a jackpot or something, on her birthday? That would be soo awesome. lol We'll see.
I have one more surprise for mom, to commemorate her birthday weekend. Photos!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

I love you like cooked food!

sucks that the pic is a bit blurry...
what happens sometimes when you get people to snap photos for you. lol.

My mom's favorite - Al Green. lol