The Christmas Sweater

"Eddie, we can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we react to it. We are all meant to be happy. Even you, Eddie, as hard as it is for you to believe sometimes, you are meant to be happy. If you're not happy, it's not God's fault, it's not my fault, or anyone else's fault. It's your own."
--Glen Beck, The Christmas Sweater

I never really watched anything on CNN until I found Glen Beck. Immediately, Becky and I were glued to his talk show every night at seven o'clock. Sadly, he is no longer on CNN; he has moved to FOX News and now I can say there is nothing worth watching on CNN. I know because I tried to find a replacement for my Beck addiction. But all I found was mind numbing babelings of a very left-wing liberals spewing nonsense out their nostrils. In order to remedy the problem we are getting Direct TV for Christmas. I can hardly contain myself. But now for the exciting part in the Glenn Beck story...
We had the opportunity to go and meet Glen at the premier of his is play, The Christmas Sweater, at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh. It was a truly moving story-deep and thought provoking- and if anyone would like to buy it go to GlenBeck.com (enter plug here). Glenn Beck performed his story with such captivating emotion, humor, and rawness. After the play, we waited in line to shake his hand and get our book signed. Not once, but twice. Becky went through first, while I snapped a picture that didn't turn out. Then, since traffic was at a stand still in the parking garage, I went through with the same book to meet him myself. He was such a friendly guy, very genuine and down to Earth. Notice the NRA shirt. We love this man!!

Happy Thanksgiving

We spent the last week in South Carolina visiting Hannah, Brandon, Caleb, and Audrey. We were able to spend a couple of days at Myrtle Beach, collecting shells and enjoying the balcony on our serbert-colored hotel. We had a fun time visiting Caleb's school, playing at parks, watching animated movies nonstop, getting clawed by Kiki, and discovering golf on the Wii among other things. Dj and I enjoyed kidnapping both Caleb and Audrey and doing random things with them: the carwash with Caleb and the scary monster blow dryer with our windows rolled down and feeding Audrey fried okra at Little Pig's BBQ. The visit just reminded me how much I want to live closer to them all, so they can be a bigger part of our lives!

Dj and I bundled up under the pier.

Audrey the Velociraptor enjoying the view on the balcony.

And we came back with plenty of stuff to keep us occupied. Brandon gifted us with his entire music collection burned in mp3 files on a million CD's. Better than winning the lottery.

Hannah taught Dj how to crochet. Dj decided to make a camo blanket. The blanket kept growing and growing. I think the tread is starting to strech out more and more, because the blanket keeps growing. It is now much larger than him. We had to stop three times to buy more thread. We will see how wide this blanket gets with 14 bundles of thread, camo thread...

Decorating Time

Since we will be busy visiting in South Carolina for Thanksgiving, we decided to decorate our tree today for Christmas. Yes, I know it is really early, but this is the only time we could do it until December! With the snow falling outside, it could not have been a better time. Every year we try to get new ornaments as a keepsake of fun memories we have experienced. Here are our new ornaments for 2008:
This wreath was knitted by my Grandma Golden using a milk jug ring for the center mold of the wreath. Although she passed away in 2000, I was finally able to get one this year to keep forever.

Dj's first set of dentures. What else can I say? I think it is rather cute.

My Grandpa Golden worked very hard to win each of his grandkids a medal from the senior olympics. And every year he kicked butt big time! I decided to turn my medal into a Christmas ornament.

Lastly is our fishing boat from Maine with the little lobster trap in the back. Every year, we save our special ornaments for the very end, and try to remember stories to tell about each ornament as we hang it on our tree. Years from now, we will be able to look back on Dj's years in dental school, our trip to Maine, and the sweet memories of my Grandma and Grandpa Golden.

This is a picture that I took out at coopers rock. We wanted to try and capture the fall season in a photo. But most of the area was still green or a dead looking combo, not the typical fall colors we were hoping for.

This is our puking pumpkin George. He had a little too much eggnog. But the neighborhood kids sure love him.