Christmas was both happy and sad for me. Since I like to start on a positive note,first the happy stuff. The day started by me watching the today show. It got more wonderful when I heard them say Todd Eldridge would be skating to Clay Aikens All is well.Watching that just made me feel good! After that I started some preparations for Christmas dinner. My husband had stayed over at a friends house and returned around 10:30A.M. We opened gifts from family then. The friends he stayed with were coming over for dinner later. I then popped a Clay Aiken Christmas in the DVD player and watched it.After that I noticed TV guide was rerunning their interview with clay,so I watched it. Then at 3:00P.M. the Holiday on Ice special came on,which I throughly enjoyed! I thought Clay sounded good although their was a strange echo from the ice rink. Photos from the picture section of this website. Some of the skaters seemed to really like him and show their love. I enjoyed seeing him skate with them at the end!

MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH ICE SKATING. I learned to ice skate when I was about 10 or 11.My grandfather(moms dad)was always a kid at heart and liked to take his grandkids to outdoor sports he liked to do. One of those sports was ice skating! Every winter we would wait on the pond to freeze over in the local city park. Grandpa would then round up all the grandchildren and borrow skates from whereever he could get them to take us skating. We would go to the park and grandpa would set us at the edge of the pond and say wait here while I test the ice. Now I have never seen any sense to this method of testing the ice. He would put on his skates,go to the edge of the pond, then stand on the ice to see if it was safe!This was the method to make sure none so us kids would be falling through the ice! Once the ice didn't break he would say its Ok,then allow us kids to go skating. While he was doing this,often times there would already be people skating on the pond! Grandpa also loved auctions and garage sales,one day he called us all to come to his house. He had a big cardboard box there,he had aquired at a sale. In it was ice skates of all sizes. My cousins and I all had to try on a pair of skates to see which ones would fit us. The ones I got were often,slightly to tight or a little two big. Its no fun trying to skate that way. I often was told to wear two pairs of socks or stuff paper in the toes of the skates. Let me tell you ,Its uncomfortable to skate that way! One year for Christmas I recieved a pair of ice skates,a size 9. My parents thought my feet out grow into them. They didnt!,but I still had to use them to skate. Grandpa continuced to take us all skating,sometimes we went to the pond,other times we went to a different park. At the other park they just flooded the tennis courts in the winter and let us skate on them. This proved to be a much safer method of skating and noone had to test the ice. Years later when I was in college at OSU,I decided to take an ice skating class for fun. The University had an indoor ice rink. I learned to skate better then I ever had in my life. We learned how to stop,turn and skate backwards. All those years skating with grandpa,I never new how to stop. We usually just fell down,or ran into the grass to get stopped! Im very thankful for that ice skating class!

That was the fun stuff. My sad new is on Dec. 24th my husband recieved a phonecall from my brother while I was at work.I called my husband on his cell phone on my way home from work around 7:15 p.m.to ask him to turn on the Christmas lights before I got home. He said he wasnt home he was at a friends house and would be home later.I went to bed about 11:15p.m. I suppose around 11:30-11:45 the house phone rang. Its my hubby.He forgot to tell me ,to call my brother and my mom,they had called earlier in the day. Since it was so late I decided mom would probably sill be up. She was. She informed me that a longtime family friend had passed away that morning. Dec.24th at approx.5:30AM. We were expecting it. He had pancreatic cancer for about a year. My mother and I had seen his oldest daughter while shopping after Thanksgiving and she told us then she didn't expect her dad to make it to Christmas. We actually thought he would go sooner than this.Mom said she had spent all day with the family,first waiting on the funeral home people to get to the house and then helping them with arrangements. His funeral is tommorrow. Since I live so far away I just plan to send them something.I talked to my brother yesterday. He had gone to see the family that day also. He lives about 1and 1/2 hours away from them.I wished him Merry Christmas and we talked about our old friend some.

Ill have to stop now. Hubby just got up so my computer time ends. Ive been Happy,Sad and Sick this holiday season. I hope you are all Happy! reneti