Icicles Anyone?

The best thing when the snow starts to melt are the beautiful icicles that form off the dripping roof. I think these are our biggest ones yet! Yes...when you look at the pictures you will see that the Christmas lights are still up....Scott has been working out of town a lot and every time he has been home it is either snowing or raining.

Dominic Plays Basketball!

Dominic had his first basketball game on January 26th. Turns out they lost their coach the week before so no one was in charge of picking up their uniforms or getting the team organized. Oh well, they got uniforms, just not their sizes and one of the workers from the YMCA coached for the day. Dominic was a bit more concerned about his uniform falling off during the first part of the game, but then he seemed to fall in to the flow of things by the last quarter. These kids are fun to watch! I laughed a lot.....not at them, but at how cute they all were!

Dominic tries to adjust his jersey.

Dominic stands back to see the action around the hoop

Getting a little advice during the break. Dominic finally put his shirt on under his jersey because he is so shy and it was exposing too much for him
Finally get's in the groove with his arms up and moving to toward the ball instead of away from it

Our New Granddaughter!

She's finally here. Sarah and Jeff have given us a beautiful granddaughter. Charlotte Delia Coleman. Born January 27th, weighing in at 8 lbs, 4 oz, 21 1/2 inches long. Sarah was a champ...and Jeff kept us in touch all along the way. We think she looks just like Sarah. We are going back to North Carolina to visit in March. We can't wait to hold her. Here are a few pictures of the proud parents and their little princess.

What a hoot!

Who needs an alarm clock when you live in the country? Not us! This morning around 6:45 something hit our bedroom window and the dogs started barking. I got up (yes, I was still sleeping) to see if the wind was blowing. The wind wasn't blowing, but I saw feathers on the window and Scott told me I needed to stop using windex....hahahaha! All of a sudden, an owl jumped up on to the screen and hung on for a while. I thought it was injured, so I grabbed my camera to take advantage of this rare photo opportunity. The owl jumped down in to the flower bed. I was able to get this great picture. The owl appears to be a youngin'. I think it was just startled from crashing in to the window. As soon as I flashed the camera, it took off in full flight. I hope he starts hanging out in our barn. We would love to have a barn owl! This was just one of mother nature's moments.....one of the reasons we love living in the country!

Happy 2008!

I would have posted this on Jan. 1, but we woke up to no power. It was kind of cool having to heat the house with only the fireplace and make coffee the old fashioned way on top of the stove. It's amazing what you can actually do without electricity. Funniest thing of all is when I called to wish all the family a Happy New Year, Dominic asked me if I remembered to pay my bill....for a 7 year old, that's pretty smart! Okay, on with the resolution. This year I am not making any resolutions to cause me any pressure. My one resolution is to drink more water. With that in mind, I think drinking more water will make me healthier and eventually lead to weight loss and better skin. Who knows, if I'm drinking so much water, I might not want to smoke either! So there you have it. Drink more water.

Christmas Eve with the Carmody's

Since our family celebrated early, this is the first time that I have not spent Christmas Eve with my family. It felt a little odd at first but once we got rolling it was great. Tom and Pam Carmody are just like family. They are our closest and dearest friends in Tehachapi. When they invited us to join them for simple evening, we were delighted. Pam served up awesome seafood dishes and we stuffed ourselves! Not to mention the pomegranate martini's. Whew! So after stuffing ourselves and indulging in a bit of cheer, we were off to the Christmas Eve service at church, then back to the Carmody's for pie...rhubarb pie....yummmm! Thanks Tom, Pam and Shane for a wonderful Christmas Eve!

Christmas Comes Early at the Coleman Ranch

This year we did our Christmas celebration early. With the family growing and the kids needing to go to more places than ever before, we decided that Jesus wouldn't mind if we celebrated his birthday early. So the family all came to the our home over the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd.
The adults also decided to exchange hand made gifts rather than contributing to the commercialism of Christmas. It was an awesome weekend with lots of laughing, lots of food, and some crazy loud singing of Christmas caroles. Nana said we sounded terrible but because we were having so much fun she encouraged us to keep singing. My brother Steve and I made an attempt at old fashioned popcorn balls and candied apples, but they didn't come out very well so we decided that we wouldn't keep that new tradition. We had a great prime rib dinner with all the fixin's Saturday night and then Sunday morning we opened gifts and Joni made us maple corn fritters. And since Scott's birthday is the 23rd, we celebrated his day, too. Family and togetherness, that is what it was all about for us this year. Here are a few pictures of the weekend.

We started slow by making sure the dogs all had red and green scarves. This first picture is of our granddogs, Lily and Maxine and our dogs, Hermie and Bailey. The dogs got a long great and ran around in the yards until they were pooped.

Next we have a picture of Dan dressed for cold weather to go fishing. He caught a nice trout at the lake with Scott.
The family all gathered together for our annual photo. These next two pictures show the gang gathered by the tree with dogs eyes all a glow.

Next is Steve trying to get Hermie to be his friend. He brought treats for all the dogs. Hermie growled at Steve most of the weekend but he wouldn't give up.

Joni and Kristen strung popcorn and cranberries to add to our tree.

And our newest tradition, reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" by the fire. Joni and Dominic took turns reading and showing the pictures. I couldn't believe how quiet the house was while they read the story. And finally, Dominic poses while he opens his presents. He actually opened them slowly this year and checked each present out before moving on to the next one.