Merry Christmas

Well we had a very busy Christmas and it flew right on by. We had a good time though. We spent Christmas in B.C. at my parent's house. Before Christmas we made a trip up the mountain on my dad's snowmobiles. It was pretty fun, but super windy up there. And it was snowing so we didn't get a good view that day.

We also went on a hay ride around town to check out all the lights. The little kids loved it and we all about froze to death by the end. We saw some pretty amazing Christmas lights though.
On Christmas day we got some sweet gifts. Tim bought me a video camera and I got him satellite TV. You see out in Stirling (in the middle of no where) you can't get cable. The cable companies call it a "dead area". Tim tried putting up with the rabbit ears on top of our big screen HD TV, but I guess the three fuzzy channels didn't cut it. And I have been wanting a video camera for ages. We got many other super nice gifts from our family as well.

Now we're back home and working again. Those six days that I took just zipped by. Today is Tim's last day of work for the next three months. January 2nd he starts his 4th Year Electrical schooling. By the end of March he'll be a Journeyman. We're pretty excited. However it'll suck for the next three months without Tim's paycheques. The EI he gets while is school is pretty terrible, but at least it's something right?

Nilsson Family Newsletter

Christmas Baking

Well I'm trying to do some Christmas baking. I actually really enjoy it. It's just kinda hard finding time to do it in the evenings after work. Anywho, Monday night I started with the Whipped Shortbread and I had problem after problem. I started the dough and I ran out of flour upstairs in my pantry. I didn't worry as I was sure I had a bag or two downstairs in my food storage. I went to check it out and to my surprize I had three bags of sugar and no flour. Now I live out of town so it's not like I can zip over to the grocery store. I started by phoning my Aunt to see if she had some...no answer. Then I called my cousin next door and she said she had some in her food storage that I could us and I said I'd replace it tomorrow. She called me back a minute later and she, like me, only had bags of sugar. She didn't even have one cup. Then I remembered that I keep a little canister of flour near my stove for making gravy (easier than bringing out the huge tub of flour from my pantry). I barley got one cup from it. But it's all good. I continue with the recipe that ends with a pinch of salt. I finished up and put the dough in the fridge and plan to bake it tomorrow as now it's too late and I'm tired. Fast forward to Tuesday (last night)...I bake them all (3.5 dozen) and then do a taste test. THEY WERE HORRIBLE! I don't know how much salt I put in, but it sure was no pinch. My beautiful cookies taste like salt blocks. So I have to toss them out and start all over again tonight. They look yummy though, but don't taste them. I'm starting to think the cookie stuff is not for me.
My Chewy Gingersnaps were much better. Thanks to Tim's sister Rachel for the new recipe. They're wonderful.

Presents

Last Friday I finished all of my Christmas shopping and on Saturday I wrapped the presents. It took me forever. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel the need to do ribbons, bows, and such on each gift. My back was super sore from sitting on our hard floor in front of the tv wrapping. Here's a picture.

Ashlee's Asian

You'll only get this if you've seen You, Me, & Dupree. "No you can't have it back! And why is it all Asian?"

Tim's Patrick

Well, I always liked Dirty Dancing (click the link to see my Blog post of Nov 14). Now the true test will be to see if Tim can dance like Patrick....for some reason I doubt it as it was like pulling teeth to get him to dance at our wedding. Kinda funny that we first met at a dance, eh? However, I can't complain...I'm married to Patrick, Jake, Ashton, Antonio, & Tom all rolled into one.

It’s been quite the week

So many things have happened this last week. In the last seven days there’s just been so much. Last Tuesday night my cousin’s 2 month old little boy passed away suddenly. And if a death of a baby wasn’t enough, when Granny heard the news she had a heart attack. She’s still in ICU and therefore Grampa was all alone and needed help (he’s 90 years old), so now the family is trying to take care of him. And then on Sunday a different cousin of mine had to take her little 18 month old baby to the ER because the side of his face was paralysed (Bells Palsy). It’s just been one thing after another. On Thursday we have the funeral in Jaffray for little Jaxson. We’re lucky we have such a close family when we have such trials as these. I know the Lord doesn’t give us more than we can handle, but this week has been very difficult.

There was one good part about this week though. On Saturday my immediate family gathered in the Temple and Dad was sealed to his parents and his brother for eternity. What an amazing experience. I’m so glad that I know families can be together forever.

Slide Show

As you can see I've added a slide show of our photos to our blog. But I'm not happy with it's location on the page. You see, I've never had any html training and it takes me a very long time doing the trial and error way and the Help function to figure things out. I switch to this new Beta thing with Blogger and it's supposed to be easier for people like me, but I can't seem to get it to do what I want either. So please work with me while I try and learn this html stuff.

Family Wall

I've added some photos to our "Family" wall. Our family is pretty small with just Tim and I plus a couple horses and dogs. We'll have to get some pictures of our extended family or it'll just have to stick with what we have in the frames. I want to change the photos to sepia from black & white. I think it'll go better with the color scheme of our house. Oh and sorry about the blinding flash reflecting in the photo. If I didn't use the flash then the picture was blurry. And I need to reprint the one that has Tim's head cut off.