a good time was had by all.......

we did a very untraditional Christmas eve  this year, since my daughter was working, and couldn't be with us, my hubby desided we would go to the casino to play a bit and have the sea food  buffett, he gave me and our son each a hundred dollars to play on, but mine didn't go very far, it just wasn't my day to win.  But my son did really well, he won a  950.00 jackpot! I was really happy for him, since he doesn't have a job yet, this will keep him going for a while,  my hubby did ok too, leaving a few hundred dollars over what he started with!  Dinner was wonderful, this place has the best buffett food I have ever had, the sea food is so fresh and yummy, salmom done about six different ways, the same with shrimp,  oysters on the half shell, and pan fried, mussels, steamed clams and fried ones, crawfish cajun style several different types of crab legs......prime rib, and rib eye steak, and a desert bar to die for......
   I did a traditional Christmas dinner, and it was so nice to have both kids home to share it with, its been a very long time since we have had Christmas as a whole family
  My daughter works for a very up scale grocery store, so she bought my christmas gift with a  gift certificate she got from her work, a big basket of gourmet goodies, including some Belgian fruit beers in bottles that look like small champagne bottles, they even had corks in the bottles, under neath the  metal caps......I has one with dinner tonight is was Pomme Lambic,(apple beer) it was so good, it was amazing, can't wait to try the other two .......one is peach and the other raspberry........its cool getting to try things I would never other wise try because of the expense, she got to use her employee discount on top of using her gift card so it didn't cost her anything, and it was a very nice gift!  And she was very happy with her goodies as well, she had hinted she was wanting a toaster oven, so that was her main gift, then I shopped all year long looking for small goodies I thought she would like, and also made her some  jewelery (some thing she just expects) I think her favorite was a pair of earrings I made from some poly clay kitties like the figurines you see in chinese  restraunts, she has commented  that she would like a figurine the last time we took my dad out for dinner.........so I thought she would like them, and she did

Christmas came early at my house!

A few weeks ago Juli from Julsbeads ran a special, limited to the first five people to respond, if I remember correctly it was 30% off of her skills on the torch for one day..........well I responded in time to be #2, and these beautiful beads are the result..........I haven't made up my mind which are my favorite, the funky little birds remind me of the birds depicted by the northwest native americans in their totem poles and the like.....
And the cross focal is destined to belong to my sister inlaw, if I can part with it.......it just looks like something she would love to wear, and the tabular focal and accent beads on the right hand side are just so beautiful, I think they will be mine fore sure.........looks like I am in for some fun times beading real soon!
   I had a suprise yesterday, I got a phone call from my son in Las Vegas, he wants to come "home" he has lived in Vegas now for about 8 or 9 years, and he really misses the northwest, all our trees and rivers and the ocean.........it just finally got to him I guess, so at this moment he is layed over in LA but should be here some time soon, can't wait to see him, it will be nice to have both of my children close to home again! What a wonderful Christmas present!
  I hope all of you have as wonderful a Christmas as I have been lucky to have!!!

early Christmas present

my christmas gift from my husband was delivered today by UPS.........and it was exactly what I wanted, he got me a nook, and I love it , I've already downloaded close to 50 books into it, I bought a couple, but Barns and Nobel has a pretty big list of free books, even a few I have heard of, so I got a couple cook books, and a bunch of fiction, its amazing how fast they downloaded, I ordered them from an email, and they went directly to the nook........I've already finished reading the first book I bought, its almost 2:00 am, I should be in bed, but can't sleep, so guess I will start another book.....

old friends

a few months ago, actually back before my dad passed away, an old friend from my distant past, contacted me.......She was my best friend during my childhood years, and teen years.........we drifted apart as we moved in different directions, she went to Seattle, I moved to Portland........we got together once on thanksgiving at my moms house, when my kids were about 5 and 6, we haven't seen each other since, its been about 25 years.......So she was in town yesterday, and we got together for lunch, had a great time, and discovered we are both jewelery makers, she is more into metal work, chain male and the like, I am a bead weaver, but starting to branch out into a little metal work myself,(going to teach myself torch enameling) She brought me a strand of mauve pearls she had just hand knotted, they are beautiful.....and she picked out a pair of beaded earrings from my stock pile.....we went window shopping and had a wonderful time.........wish we lived closer, it would be nice to get together to make jewelery together.........I was amazed that we just seemed to pick up where we left off all those years ago........So I guess I got my Christmas present early........getting my old friend back!!!