A LITTLE Christmas from Issoudun

Nick (kneeling), Joannès and Gerardine

Linda, Gerardine and Nick

Here is our little Christmas tree. The modern photo under it of the Annunciation was given to us by the Carmelite Sisters in Bourges. Its actually a photo of a sculpture done by a local artist.

How do you like the big knife that Nick chose to cut the little plum pudding. He looks like he's about to kill something while Joannès, being a Frenchman, isn't too impressed with the Irish pudding.

Hi everyone,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Cor Novum Community gave me a digital camera for Christmas so I'm trying it out. We saved Nick's plum pudding for today (Sunday) because we were all stuffed on Christmas and its Joannès feast day today. Here are some photos from our little get together today. Hans in in Rome so he missed out. PS - The plum pudding was good (an old Irish tradition). Love you lots, Linda

Merry Christmas from the Best of the Whites

Life doesn't get much better than this.

A TRUE FLORIDIAN IN 70 DEGREE WEATHER

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Party

I can't wait to see everyone next week! I'm so glad that we get to come. To bad that the wedding had to get moved (groom couldn't get leave approved from Army!) but works for me!

Pictures of Mini - The Mini Cat

Here are some pictures of Mares cat Mini. She is a cutie and the tinest little cutie at that.

Can't resist this - This dog is the cutest of all!

Isn't he a beaut!!

Random Tips

This was in an email that was sent to me. Some pretty interesting tips! Enjoy...

• Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to pick the little "stringy things" off of it. That's how the primates do it.
• Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.
• Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!
• Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.
• Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.
• To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in before beating
• Add garlic immediately to a rec ipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of arlic.
• Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. lace them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!
• Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza.
•  Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg.. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.
• When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.
• To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.
• Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.
• Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.
• Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.
• To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.
• To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.
• Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and ... ta da! ... static is gone.
• Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.
• Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car . When the window s fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!
•  If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.
• Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.
• To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2" with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!
• Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants They eat it, take it "home," can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something; he took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material ... I'm sure you know what your dryer's lint filter looks like. Well ...the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn't go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that's what burns out the heating unit. You can't SEE the film, but it's there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free ... that nice fragrance too. You know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box .. well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to potentially burn your house down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with hot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long! How about that!?! Learn something new everyday! I certainly didn't know dryer she ets would do that. So, I thought I'd share!

Thanksgiving turkey's

All dressed up for Thanksgiving

Emmily is in the plain top
Emmily shows her first front teeth

Kaitlyn shows her first front teeth

Emmily is zooming around in her walker

Kaitlyn loves getting her picture taken

I Wish These EAGLES Would Stay Out Of Our Backyard!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Well it's official... Mini ( our cat ) is almost 9 months old and still only 1 -1/2 pounds. I went to Guinnes Book of World Records and found that the smallest cat on record weighs in at 3lbs. So
I will be putting our very own Mini in for the world record as soon as she is a year old. They have all sorts of rules and such so I have to follow them to the T. Who would of thought we Stayer's would leave a mark like that in this world.... I don't have a pic to post, I will have to get Aunt Donna over here with her camera, so everyone can see Mini. She is sitting on my shoulder at the moment watching me type this.

Everyone, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Hugs and Kisses to all.

Aunt Mare

Mount Ventoux - Linda's vacation (continued)

OK everyone,

Here are a few more vacation photos, these are of our visit to Mount Ventoux. Sorry I'm taking up so much blog space but I can only put a few photos on for each blog entry.

Much love,

Linda

Linda's vacation photos - Mountbrun Les Bains

View of the valley.

The village of Mountbrun, built on the hillside.

A little field around the house where we stayed.

This is the house where we stayed. It was quite modern on the inside! This is our Cor Novum car (Renaut Scenic).

In the next blog, I'll put in some photos of our day at Mount Ventoux - 1910 meters high -or 6112 feet!) It was easy getting up in the car but it sure was cold!

Much love,

Linda

Photos from Slovakia

Hi All,

I arrived back after doing a bit of work in Slovakia for our Cana Group and then went on vacation for two weeks in the mountains. I'll post some photos here of the Cana Group meeting and will do another post when I can for the vacation in the mountains. Love to all of you.

Linda.

Kids on Carnival

I read Stevie's comment about how young kids have to be to be free on Carnival and here's what I found... They aren't free :( I went through the reservation process and booked with baby brown. With putting in his birthday as 12/31/09 he was $250. This is the 3rd guest price. I'm sure it will be less with a group discount but this was just booking online. Here is a good link about kids on Carnival.





I think the reason for this is they offer a ton of stuff for kids...and the kids eat the food. For kids 2-17 they have different clubs (depending on age) that the kids can go to and they offer babysitting services at night. For infants they offer group babysitting from 8am-12pm; not great but it's something.

Maybe if they met Addison they wouldn't make her pay...you really don't have to do much to keep her entertained...she can do that herself!!

Funny

Okay.....you can read this blog but you have to go down to the next one too because you can't miss the message on our family vacation!

Jenn sent this out via email and I found it pretty funny so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

• I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer's history if you die.
• Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
• I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
• There is great need for a sarcasm font.
• How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
• Was learning cursive really necessary?
• Map Quest needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my damn neighborhood.
• Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
• I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
• Bad decisions make good stories.
• You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
• Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.
• I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to the ten-page paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
• "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this -- ever.
• I hate it when I miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damn it!)but when I immediately call back it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
• I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
• I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
• My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?
• I think the freezer deserves a light as well..
• I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay
  

Strayer Family and Friends Cruise

2010 is almost here and that's when we said we wanted to plan a family vacation/cruise. Well I found the cruise for us! It on the Carnival Dream Ship, which is Carnival's newest and largest ship. You could see the ship in NY if you wanted to on November 12th, as it's getting ready for it's inaugural sailing to Florida. The ships port will be Port Canaveral and the itinerary is the Carribean (smoooooth sailing!). Go to Carnival.com and take a look at the video on the ship, it's pretty awesome.



Anyway, I'm thinking the first or second week in October. The itinerary for the Western Carribean cruise is:

Saturday: Port Canaveral (Orlando), FL ;
Sunday Fun Day At Sea ;
Monday: Cozumel, Mexico ;
Tuesday: Isla Roatan ;
Wednesday: Belize ;
Thursday: Costa Maya, Mexico ;
Friday: Fun Day At Sea ;
Saturday: Port Canaveral (Orlando), FL

The cost per person will be in the $500 range and includes all your food. The only thing not included is your excursions and alcohol.



I'll need to know who's in so we can start making the reservations. The more people we have the better price we'll be able to get. So far we have:

Dave and Reen
Angela and Addision
Jenn, Mike and Baby Brown
Donna and Quentin



Let me know if your in and I'll get to work on the plans!

Love you all!


Maureen

Happy Halloween (and Birthday for Gini!)

Happy Belated Birthday Gin Gin......Sorry I missed it! I love you and will call you tomorrow. I just got my phone back (lost for 2 weeks!).

Here are some pics of Addison. We could only manage to get two picture and the one isn't that great (princess) but she wasn't in the mood for a picture. And the second picture (Pebbles) she was wired on candy so we couldn't get her to be serious. We took about 10 pictures of her with silly faces (I added one where she was rolling her eyes) until we finally got one decent picture.

Maureen

Come Pray The Rosary

http://www.comepraytherosary.org/

This link is for all prayer intentions. This is a perpetual Rosary and never ends.
If you need prayer for anything you can post the intention here and people from
all over the world will be praying with/for you.

Just for you Aunt Donna ;)

My friend Carly sent me this pic from the shower.

I am 27 weeks (6 months 3 weeks). Only 3 more months and Baby Brown will be here!