More Christmas Activities

Mailia's Lai Lai (my mom) is here and we've been busy doing some of our traditional holiday sight-seeing.

Small Town Christmas

I really miss my hometown at Christmas. Family, friends, the lights, the gatherings, the smell of real Christmas trees, and the new fallen snow. We try to re-create all that, here in Florida, and on the surface, it looks like Christmas, but it's a far stretch from 'home'.
So we turn the A/C up, click on the fake fireplace, and play Christmas Carols, while recalling all those wonderful Christmases from years past.
For Mailia, this is the only kind of Christmas she knows. So we play it to the hilt. Someday, God willing, we'll go 'home' so she can know what traditional Christmas is all about. For now, we are making our own traditions. And that's ok too.
We don't exactly live in a small town here. It's more like a suburb of Orlando. But there are still a lot of small town traditions and local customs that we enjoy. One of them is the annual St.Cloud Christmas parade. Low budget floats, lots of patriotism, and hometown pride as the bands and football players and cheerleaders march by flashing smiles to their parents and friends along the way. So simple, so down home, so perfect.
Mailia's Brownie troop entered a float in this year's parade, so I became one of those proud Mamas, beaming and heart swelling as she passed us by. Another 'first' for her Daddy and me. But the smile on her face was priceless! As her float approached, we could see her scanning the crowds for the familiar faces of her mama and daddy and Lai Lai (grandma). When she finally spotted us.........well let's just say it don't get much better than that. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Though times are tough, we still live in the greatest country on Earth. We have much to be thankful for. We'll be counting our blessings today.

God Bless America! God Bless our Troops!


Happy Thanksgiving!

The Space Shuttle

We watched the space shuttle go up the other night and Mailia wanted me to put our pictures on her blog. I think this was the first night launch she witnessed, and according to NASA, is the last scheduled night launch for the shuttle program.
The first couple of pictures were taken off the tv obviously. No one gets that close, except cameras, but the last two were taken from our driveway. Not the best pictures, especially with that huge utility pole in the way, but it was a beautiful full moon night....the orange glow is the shuttle. We are about an hrs. drive from Kennedy Space Center. We've watched many launches over the years. Some from over at the beach, once on KSC property (awesome), but most from home. The night launches are my favorites.

Jimmie Wins the 3-Peat!

3X Champion Jimmie Johnson
#48

Mailia went to bed a very happy #48 fan.

Nascar is over for this season, but she and I will be counting the days until the Daytona 500 in Feb. :-)

President-Elect Obama

Half of the country went to bed (or woke up today) elated. The other half.........not so much. But it is what it is. I'm a conservative independent and feel that Obama is too far left, but we shall see. He has four years to prove 55 million of us wrong. I hope he does.
God Bless America!

Election Day

ANNOY THE MEDIA - GO OUT AND VOTE!
by Newt Gingrich



"Today marks the end of one of the most dishonest, relentlessly one-sided campaigns of bias and distortion by the mainstream media in American history.

The latest tactic in this elite media campaign has been to declare the presidential race over in an effort to discourage some voters from going to the polls. After all, if Barack Obama has already won, why should supporters of John McCain even bother to vote?

But this election won't be decided by Keith Olbermann, or CNN, or the New York Times.

It will be decided by you.

So annoy the mainstream media. Remember 2000. Remember how close it was. Remember how every single vote counted.

Go out and vote. Now."