To sum it all up

I've been a bad blogger the last few days so to sum it all up:

Christmas was fun. Not the funnest Christmas I've ever had, but better than last yr. If I am lucky enough to be invited to Melissa and Jeff's again to play with the kids, drink Starbucks, make cookies and eat tacos for dinner on Christmas Eve....I'll be one happy camper. Midnight Mass was beautiful and of course, I cried when Silent Night was sung. I mean I just could not stop the tears from coming!!! My dad loved that song so much!!! The church looked gorgeous due in part to my kids!!! I was very proud of them. Father Michael's homily was inspiring. I really enjoy his homilies. Fr. Jerry gave me an enormous hug afterwards. I just love that little man!!!! Christmas morning was fun to watch my nephews open their gifts. They were happy to get the baseball and pokemon cards and they tried to load the PC games I got Bryan, but they need more computer memory. When we got to my sister in laws parents they had bikes waiting for them. They had fun with those. I even got in on the fun and rode Bryan's around the culdesac (Lori's parents live on a semi private street.)We had the best brunch...mountain man breakfast, made in the dutch oven. I can't WAIT to get mine from Utah this summer. Dutch oven's RULE!!! I went home around 4pm and enjoyed Christmas dinner......veggie soup and a bagel!!! Of course I had the most scintillating conversation with Derek. That made my Christmas day!!!! Derek is the best gift I've gotten this year!!!! EVER IN MY LIFE!!!

Last night Julie, Andrea and I went down to the Pantages theater, with my check engine light shining in the car halfway there, to see Les Miserables. Julie's older sister, Tammy and her husband, Jeff, met us there and we went to this little tiny italian place called Fabiolus for dinner. I wasn't expecting this place to be that great, but it really really was!!!! I had spinach and ricotta cheese raviolis in a white wine cream sauce. Very tasty. It was there that we learned a secret about Jeff...he likes babies!!! Ok ok, we were talking about veal and how it was baby cow. Julie said she'd never had veal and probably never will and Jeff just said "I like babies" We were laughing sooo hard. So random!!! I am so amazed at what people deem appropriate Theater attire. I was dressed up. Skirt, nice top, stockings dress shoes...all of us were dressed nice. Jeff wore a tie and the only other time I've seen him that dressed up is for his wedding!!!! People were there in jeans, t-shirts, baseball caps, beanies....just apalling!!! We were beginning to think it was grunge night!!!!! The show was SPECTACULAR. One exception. I wanted to get up on stage, throw Eponine OFF and sing "On My Own" properly. She just didn't do it well at all and Julie agreed (I've heard the soundtrack a million times and have sung the song in competition too). Ah well.......beggars can't be choosers and I am so glad I FINALLY got to see it. The guy who played Valjean was the first understudy and he gave me chills from the top of my head to the tip of my toes!!!! AWESOME AWESOME singer!!! Chicago is coming to the Pantages in Feb and I want to go to that too!!! Maybe when Shay comes to visit I can get her to go with me!!! The drive home had me nervous with the engine light STILL ON! We made it though YAY!

My engine light has my car in the car hospital for the night and hopefully I'll have it back early tomorrow!!! So for the time being I am driving a crappy kia rio. This things smells like smoke and dirty scummy people and it has 10,000 miles on it and idles like it has 100,000!!! I love my car so much!!!! I miss it!!!

Talked to Fr. today about purging the leadership team. Starting over again. Funny thing is, I'd been thinking of bringing this up to him after the first of the year, but with Christmas, and all these funerals we seem to have scheduled this week, I did not want to burden him. So we are going to meet next week and talk about it. He is in agreement with me about certain attitudes of certain team members and we talked about leadership training. We really are together on alot of things. I just need to get up the nerve to just say HEY FATHER....I want to try this and that.....He still intimidates me to some degree, but I get a sense of understanding building between the two of us....a sense of trust as well. I think he's afraid I'm going to up and leave him like T did.....he needs to know I'm not!!!!

Passion play prep is underway. I did the blocking today and can't wait to get the copies from Julie on Thursday!!!! I got very excited thinking about it all!!! I know Fr. is pretty excited about it too. Still praying about who to ask to be Jesus!!!

2 days till the arrival of my love!!!! I can't WAIT!!!! Going to Disneyland!!! Going for Dim Sum!!!!!! a week with my honey....ahhhh, heaven!!!!