Just back from my first day back to work. Not too bad I guess. I must say that not getting paid for days off is a definite incentive to getting back to work. I'm working on something I can sink my teeth into so it's not too bad.

We had a great Christmas. Monday we kicked off the celebrating with David's school party and then by going to see Santa Claus 2 the movie with Natalie and Alex. Christmas Eve was the traditional Christmas Eve service. David did great - although he didn't feel very well so he didn't enjoy it as much as he usually does. Mom and Dad went and that means a lot to us. It's a nice service to enjoy with those you love. Then Christmas Day we opened gifts and went to Mom and Dads for dinner. Mom made a great meal as per usual. And even though David wasn't feeling well, he did eat some of that wonderful pumpkin pie. The day after Christmas we just stayed home and played with our new toys. Friday we had Christmas at the Gillespies. It's always nice to see everyone again. Some of whom we only see a couple of times a year. Then Saturday was the Salas Christmas. It too was awesome. It's always fun getting together with the sisters and their families visiting, playing games, opening gifts. It was a great day. Sunday Pam and her family came over for a couple of hours. We played some games and visited - it was fun. James wasn't feeling well after getting his wisdom teeth pulled out so he didn't come, he stayed at Mom and Dads with Muffy. (Sorry we missed you this time James.)

David's lego moviemaker is the coolest. I made a little film clip of him getting ready to start his movie making. He didn't want me to because in his mind its a movie maker for lego characters only. He is doing such a good job with the design layout and execution of his movie. He'll spend the time it takes to move his lego guy leg by leg across the stage to make him look like he's running. Taking individual shots of each step. Then you add the sounds and stuff - it's awesome. He's awesome.

Just trying this shortcut in my favorites that was created by blogger. I don't really get it. Is it just a quicky way to bring up a pop up window to type in a new blog?

Ah well, up a little later than I should be. Just had Richard's family Christmas party, home by 1:00 AM. Had to finish up one gift before tomorrow - our family Christmas party. I'm glad I made the 7 layer salad before we left. Today got a little hectic because David was invited over to a friend's house. He'd been looking forward to being invited over and he doesn't really go over to friends' houses very often, so even though we were busy getting ready for the Christmas parties and it put us a little late over to Corky's I really wanted to let him go. He had fun playing with his friends and their new toys so its all worth while.

Before David went I got him started on his new Lego Movie Maker set. He's really excited about it, yet, he's been very patient. I can't believe he waited until today - 2 days after Christmas to start putting it together. Nice little boy - he said he didn't want to bug me about getting it going because he knew the table was full of my stuff.

Darn computers - I thought I had this stupid HP shutting down clean and not causing the problem with the FSINfoSector - but I'll be darned if after all that work it didn't shut down clean again. Yesterday when I ran the thorough scandisk it kept restarting, but I did a ctrl-alt-del and the only thing running was explorer - I had shut everything else down - what's up with that?

Goodnight -

What's happening at the Kolb house? David's playing with his new 'Zoo Tycoon' expansion pack and having a lot of fun adding dinosaurs to his Zoo. He's actually learning a lot about the creatures. So do I consider this a learning software and allow him to play unlimited???

We all were outside a while ago shoveling the driveway. David made his Daddy a coupon book of things he will do for him. Shoveling was one of the coupons. I hope David gets a more willing spirit when his Daddy wants to use a coupon and get help from David - or this will turn out to be one of my less than desirable ideas. Of course David was sick 2 days ago, but basically, I told David if he's sick he should go in to bed and lie down - that means no games - guess what??? He said he wasn't sick.

We got David a Leap Frog Globe. It's got a lot of facts in it and games you can play to learn the states, countries, etc. Rich is really good at geography - I'm kind of crappy - David's just plain intimidated by it so far. Hope he takes an interest in it. I thought it could really help him with geography. I know at some point he has to learn the states. (Truth be told, I thought it would help me with my geography too - I always do crappy in trivial pursuit when I get those geography questions.)