Yup, It's Winter!

Now that is one awesome "King of the Mountain" hill! Remember playing that fun game as kids? Anyone up for it?

Interstate 490

Brrr!

Koty just had to go out and play in the snow with the kids, but he didn't last as long as they did outside.

Those darn toe jam icicles! Ouch..I must get them out!

Quite a lot of snow out there today! Once again, just about every school was closed except for our town. Our kids did get out 40 minutes early though, but they ended up getting home around the same time due to poor driving conditions.

Memories

I came across this picture tonight, taken in at the end of November in 2003. There were sinkholes everywhere when we were looking for our Christmas tree. First Michael stepped in one, then me. You couldn't see them because they were covered with sawdust and straw. This was the 1st Holiday season in our new house. Look at my little kidlets!

Snowflakes

Steven has been making these cool paper snowflakes today. He said that a teacher in his study hall showed him how to make one because he was finished with all of his work. Now he's making them like crazy. This is only a section of one that he's working on. He's quite creative!

No More Braces!

Michael got his braces off this afternoon. He looks great!

Tim's Christmas Party

Today was the Christmas party at my brother, Tim's place. For those of you who don't know, my brother Tim was brain damaged at birth when my mother stopped breathing after being given too much of a medication to induce labor. He is most like autistic people. He lives in Newark in a home for those with similar needs. During the party we paused for a few family pictures, taken by Ben and Hannah, who had decided to come along to see their Uncle Tim. Dad played his banjo and harmonica and we sang some Christmas carols, while earlier we had munched on pizza and wings and Christmas cookies. It was great to see him, and to chat and laugh with each other. I could tell he really enjoyed our visit too, even though we were a bit obnoxious with the camera.

Health Coverage

The other day Dave and I found out that our health coverage is going to go up by $88.00 a month starting the 1st of the year. We already pay a fortune and Dave's company has not picked up any increases the last few years because it has gone up so much. One of the most frustrating things about this is that any time we need something, ie: glasses for Michael, they don't want to cover any of it. I pay $20.00 for every allergy injection, while our insurance pitches in $1.00. We are seriously considering dropping it and putting our money into an account, and letting it just build by adding to it every month as if we are paying health coverage. I know this is possibly risky, and we will thoroughly check it out first. About a year or so ago a guy from Aflack came in and talked to us at work about buying supplemental insurance from them because in case of long term illness, we could lose our life savings due to our insurance not covering it. Well then what are we paying for? I don't feel like we receive that much of a benefit from our insurance. Thoughts?.....