A Christmas tale

A very cute real
christmas story from our friends Amanda and Jesse and the twins

A few weeks before Christmas, a family of four went to a Christmas party. The party had a “special guest” on the itinerary and the instructions for all parents were to bring a small wrapped toy for each child. Before the party, the toys were collected and put into a big red sack. When Santa arrived, he distributed the gifts from his sack and the two boys received a set of four cars each. Both boys were overjoyed with the presents and thanked Santa very much. Santa responded that, “the next time they saw their good friend Chuck, tell him he’s a ‘great guy’!” It was very cute. The family stayed at the party for a while, then when it was time to leave, collected all of the cars and set off for home. Once they arrived home, one of the boys became bossy and possessive regarding the cars. “Be careful!” the father said. “Santa brought those toys and he can take them back whenever you misbehave.” Thinking he’d tamed the dragon, the father turned around, only to have one of the cars ‘whiz’ by his head. “Okay,” he responded, “it’s gone. You lose it.” The father took the car and hid it, amidst the crying of the young boy. “You need to make better choices,” the father said.
“I’d like my car back please,” the boy said the next morning.
“Sorry,” replied the father. “You need to make better choices. If Santa wants to return it to you, you’ll have to wait until Christmas. If you’ve been well behaved, you’ll get it back.”
After a few days, the boy threw another tantrum. “You lose another one!” The father said promptly, taking another car, to the boy’s protest.
“I’ll make better choices,” the boy sobbed, slowly, after calming down.
The following week, the family decided to visit a Christmas show, with a song and dance routine by multiple characters including Santa. “Daddy,” the boy said, “can you tell Santa to give me my two cars back?”
“I sure will,” the father said. “But you need to make good choices until Christmas.” Eventually, Santa and the rest of the show came down to see the people, wave and say, “Ho Ho Ho!”
“SANTA!!,” the boy shouted, “I would really like my cars back, please,” after getting a brief moment of time with the showman. “Umm…” the Santa started, “I’ll see what I can do.”
The boy behaved well for the next week and the family decided to attend another function. This was a city-sponsored float, in which Santa rode around the town and waved to people who came out of their houses to see him. Occasionally, the float would stop and Santa (and other helpers) would hand out candy canes. Because the float would have to drive down some areas with heavy traffic, the city added a microphone and giant speakers to the float, so Santa’s merriness and cheer could be heard by everyone. The family watched as the float went by and waved to the Santa. At the next intersection, the float stopped and the family trekked down the street to get closer to Santa, and possibly capture some candy canes. The young boy, broke away from his father and ran to the side of the float.
“Santa!” he yelled. “Santa!!”
It would be at this point that the city-sponsored Santa SHOULD have just said, “Merry Christmas little boy! Remember to behave and leave some milk and cookies out for me…” Instead, he said, “Someone get that kid the microphone.”
“Would you please bring the two cars back,” the boy spoke clearly and directly into the microphone. “The two cars that were taken away from me…will you please bring them back to me. I’m making good choices now.” The crowd spun and looked at the parents.
“You have to make good choices until Christmas,” the father said loudly.
“Yeah,” Santa replied. “Then you’ll get those cars back…and two NEW ones.”

Thanks Santa. The lesson? Never give your child a microphone. Merry Christmas!


PS – This story is true. The boy’s name is Jack. The family’s name is Armitage.

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Piano stairs - TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se

A wonderful young man.

Some of you know that my dear friend, Mary Ellen's daughter has Leukemia, the same kind that Jennifer's best friend Carol died from. She is in her 30's. She was in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant. Her brother was not a match and her parents were too old. A 24 year old man who did not know Emberly or her family had volunteered on a donor list. He was a good match. And he went through the marrow donation. Not a pleasant or easy thing to do. Today after about three weeks Emberly has been moved to The City of Hope apartments for the next 100 days. This week her doctor said, after a bone marrow test, that all the cells were of the donor, which is very good news. Thanks to a stranger she has a good chance of surviving. They will not reveal the name of the donor for a YEAR.

JURY DUTY, Need I say more.

Oh how much I did not want to be put on a jury. And finally at 4pm I was allowed to go home. But first I had to be tortured. Arrive at 8am and listen to how many cases were asking for juries (119). Sounded bad to me. Out of the 200 people who had been called ,two panels of 50 people were led up to two different courtrooms.They called them alphabetically so once they were on the E's I could relax. It was finally clear to me that the rest of us had escaped but we still had to sit there. The man behind me was snoring loudly as were several other desperate people. Of course I brought a book which I almost finished but it was purely terrible to have to sit there, and sit there. In the same length of time I could have flown to New York or farther.

some pictures from the trip from Hell

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The top picture is where it all began,then a picture going into Stolkholm, then Gypsies on a boat in Russia, then the Hermitage,the city of Tallinn, Estonia(where Ray went to the hospital)and finally a video from Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark
. Ray only saw Tivoli Gardens .

Chris this is for you

First I broke my camera, and before we left had to get a new one. These pictures are in San Diego. We stayed in two different hotels the two dark pictures and the sailboat are from the same one.

Thomas the train day

Muna's new car

Ain't it pretty. It is a 2008 Suzuki, with only 500 miles on it. What I don't like is it is a stick shift. However, because of the 500 miles they had to sell it as a used car, which made it a super bargain. So there it is. And we sold Ray's truck on Craigs list in one day. I'm so happy.

CHECK THIS OUT

Click here: YouTube - Dawn Wells Potato Peeling Video

TATTOOS

Susie told me that all the old ladies when she gets old will have them(tattoos). Yep. Know that is true. But whatever you do never, never put someones name on your body that you think you will love forever.Today I had a young, pretty Latino lady seeking a restraining order against ERIK. She might hate him now but she will never be able to forget him. She had put his name in giant letters across the back of her neck. E R I K

Nature at the beach

My nature walks. Twice I have seen a seal pup very much alive on the beach. The first time Shadow went running up to it and got the scare of his life when it raised its head and hissed at him I went home and called the marine rescue people, left a message on their machine. Two days later another pup, but this time it was roped off with a sign to leave him alone, when he was ready he would go back into the water. And sure enough that is what he did. These pups were very small and had to be just a few weeks old. Then Ray and I watched a blue heron catch a field mouse or rat and then slowly swallow it whole. I did not know they did that. It was just like a snake seeing the big bluge go down the skinny neck.

REVISED AND FINISHED ALBUM COVER

AND MORE PICTURES

no words needed

MORE

Here are pictures from Anaya's sixth birthday party. Gordon pushed her face in the cake. This did not make me a happy grandma, but everyone else, including her thought it was funny.

PICTURES

And here is China, minus one eye.

Up date

The vet could not save both eyes and had to sew one of them up. They do not know if China can see out of the other one. Casey and Gordon are on the way to get her this morning.(Friday)

OMG

Well today Casey's, husband Gordan came home for lunch and found their little Shitzu, China in the front yard and HER EYES HAD POPPED OUT. This is true and evidently not uncommon with this breed. Their eye sockets are larger than their eyes and if you pull on their ears or they bump their head(what must have happened) well their eyes pop out.She is at the vets and we do not know the outcome. It is possible that she could be blind.I had never heard of such a thing but my vet confirmed it.

NEWS FROM THE GRANTHAM RANCH

When the Granthams woke up this morning there were darling twin lambs to join the family . They are named Sugar and Spice. Very cute and everyone is very excited. That means seven lambs, two horses, six dogs and millions of wild chickens!

I also wanted to tell those who do not know that Oliver is in the hospital with Pancreitis, caused from drinking. He has been there for three days and is still in a lot of pain. We hope this will be a wake up call. He had to go to the hospital in an ambulance, of course I am very worried about him. Casey is , as usual ,the caretaker of them all. At the moment he is too doped up to talk, but Casey is going to see him today. She will let me know his status.