I tried eCards for Christmas this year and am pretty pleased. I think it gave everyone something fun to view, was "green", and very economical. My kids were disappointed with me changing our tradition, but I think our eCards will only improve year after year.

Abby's home from college til Jan 24th. Already she's been to Minneapolis and back to a CRU conference. Now Abby will fill her time with a lot of work hours from Hallmark.

Bryn had her bunion surgery on her right foot on Dec 18th. She was in a lot of pain for about 4 days. I'm really glad we timed it like we did: she only missed 4 days of school and I feel she's really ready and capable to go back tomorrow. She has a ride to school and helpers set up to carry her books as she's on crutches for at least another 2 weeks.

Paige hosted a New Years Eve party here and had a ball. All the guests brought a treat to share and they had fun watching the ball drop, DDR-ing, Wii-ing and playing air hockey.

I was so excited for this weekend: my first 4-day no-work weekend in a LONG time! Then I catch a whopper cold that spoiled it all. Needless to say, I did not make it to midnight New Years Eve. I did go in to Kohls for 4 hours on Friday, but had to blow my nose every other customer. Kohls did ask me to stay on after the holidays and I agreed.

Jeff has been stepping in doing a lot of the grocery shopping and running the kids places with my extra work. The super-cold day yesterday reminded us to purchase a new battery for the van. And another riddle for all us parents "What's with teenagers not wearing winter coats anymore?"


Last night, Jeff set up my new Wii-Fit and Jeff, Paige and I had fun seeing what the Wii thought of our weight and fitness status (did not match what we thought!) Hope I can stay disciplined and use it daily! All of us attended our family program at church this morning where Paige participated in Let's Make a Deal! and won the top prize of all 7 Fruits of the Holy Spirit. Everyone got a chuckle out of her as all the other contestants blandly listed the actual city they were from when they were asked, but Paige had to be different and was from "Switzerland." We de-Christmas-ed the house this afternoon. Couldn't stand the needles anymore.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Saunders household!

Our family was fortunate enough to take a 2-week driving trip out to Banff, Canada late last June. It was spectacular! We also had fun cheering our high school football team on to State this season. Weather couldn't have been better for those fall football games.

I'm still with Norman Design but have recently taken on 2 additional part-time jobs: cashiering at Kohls Dept Stores and cleaning the office every other weekend. Keeping me busy, but the retail job is quite a refreshing break from my quiet graphic design office where I sit all day. I've had fun getting involved with our local Art Guild, where I recently totally redesigned their web site. I also created a site for the girls high school Cross Country team that was a terrific outlet for the hundreds of pictures I take of them.

Paige is a freshman in high school. She plays clarinet in band and jazz band. Paige earned her black belt in Tae Kwon Do last spring and recently participated in a special routine with her Tae Kwon Do demo team. She pitched for Little League last summer and took a nasty line drive to her right eye that took her out for the playoffs. Paige will soon have to decide between Track and Softball as they are both spring sports.

Abby is a sophomore at UW-La Crosse where her major is now Communications and her minors are English as a Second Language and Art. This year Abby's rooming with an RA but already has her lease signed to live off campus with 5 close friends next year. Abby leads the Latino group with Campus Crusade for Christ at UWL. She still works at Hallmark whenever she is back home.

Bryn is a senior in high school. She wants to pursue a career in Physical Therapy but is still undecided as to where she will go to college. Bryn plays trombone in band and jazz band and runs Cross Country in the fall and Track in the spring. Band Revue just concluded its run, where Bryn was one of 4 student directors that wrote the script, set up rehearsals, did choreography and chose the music. Bryn attended Badger Girls State last June — unfortunately, the same week as our vacation. Bryn also volunteered on a mission trip again last summer, this time to West Virginia.

Jeff just celebrated 20 years with Ring & DuChateau. Jeff also continues to teach Senior Design class at MSOE. He was able to get together with his college friends in October for their annual hunt in Waubeno and Packer game, both in October. We've kept Jeff busy with many repairs he never thought he could do before: replacing a laptop screen and fixing a digital camera. However we did suffer a few losses after Jeff gave them his best try: washer, dishwasher, Honda CRV, bicycle. Luckily all replaceable.

Mike, Kevin and I celebrated John's last day of vacation on Nov 18th by going out to lunch at Brick3, a great pizza place, downtown. We really enjoy the camaraderie we have when our boss is away. As it turns out, John didn't come back the next day anyway.

For my birthday (Nov 19th) Jeff prepared a super delicious meal from my Rachel Ray cookbook. It was a halibut dish atop smashed peas. It was so yummy! Then he even had cheesecake for dessert! That was a real treat. This was my first birthday where I was on Facebook and all those well-wishes were awesome to hear!

Nov 20th was a gorgeous day and we all headed to Madison for the high school state football games. Paige rode the high school fan bus. There were 9 fan busses from our high school! Jeff and I rode out with Dave and Carrie while Bryn followed behind in her car with her friends. We arrived early so we could see part of the Division 2 game where our nephew's team, Kimberly, was playing. We were able to meet up with Terry, Debbie, Bobby, Richie and Kayla and watch the 2nd half with them. Kimberly lost. We had to travel around to the opposite side for our Division 1 game against Marquette University High School. Menomonee Falls was tough and held Marquette to only 1 touchdown, but we couldn't score against them. We ate dinner at the Stadium with Bryn and her friends before heading back home.

Saturday Nov 21st, Bryn played in a quintet at our local Sentry store. The Sentry store allows the Menomonee Falls bands to come in to the store to help celebrate the holidays. Paige had another Tae Kwon Do demo practice and I worked at Kohls. I went right from there to the grocery store. Then to the couch where Jeff and I enjoyed watching Australia at home.

I decided not to spoil my day off Sunday Nov 22nd and opted to go in to work (Norman Design) an hour early Monday and Tuesday to get my biweekly cleaning in. I had enough cleaning to accomplish at home!

So Bryn and Paige had off school for the week. Excellent. I put them on maid duty because I had a busy week ahead, plus company coming for Thanksgiving. I attended conferences for Paige and Bryn at the high school Monday night Nov 23rd. All good reports. Very weird to hear Paige being described as "quiet". At the Art Guild meeting Tuesday night Nov 24th, I am still getting rave reviews on the new website as more and more members are becoming acquainted with it. Jeff ran the concessions stand at the high school first basketball game of the season Wednesday night while I worked at Kohls. Luckily Abby, Bryn and Paige were home to welcome Meg, William and family when they got in from Indianapolis. Abby, Bryn and Paige really did a top-notch job getting the house cleaned up!

Jeff, Bryn and Paige drove up to Appleton to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. They ate out at VanAbel's, then went to visit with Debbie and her family afterwards. Abby and I drove over to Waukesha to meet my family at Kristin's. We really teased my mom about the turkeys this year. We ended up not having turkey with our Thanksgiving this year. Not done. And we couldn't get over one of the turkeys which was all breast meat and seemed to jiggle. Abby, Meg and I got the lowdown on where to meet Friday morning and we were all back home around 6pm to tuck in early. (Of course, I didn't sleep that night.)

Friday morning Nov 27th we met Kristin and Mom at Kohls at 4:30am. The store was not as crowded as other years. We found lots of early bird specials there and felt good. We were already hungry and stopped next for our annual McDonald's breakfast. From there we went to Target, ToysRUs and Brookfield Square mall. It was 10:30am and knowing we still had to work that day, Abby and I bowed out and went home to nap. We were so relieved to see Jeff and William packing up the kids to play at Flabbergast so we knew it'd be peaceful for us to sleep. The kids had a blast there, relieving their cabin fever. Abby and I got back home to enjoy pizza with everyone at our house.

Meg cut Abby's hair Saturday Nov 28th before Abby and I went off to work again. Meg, William and family left soon afterward. Abby was able to get together with her close girlfriends that night while they were all home on break. Kendal came over for a Saunders-exclusive visit before they went. I pooped out again that night and Jeff and I watched Gladiator.


Today Sunday Nov 29th we all slept in in the morning. Very busy doing laundry, paying bills, catching up on the blog! Abby's boyfriend, Mark, got back from his family vacation and was able to see Abby this afternoon before she went back to La Crosse. She was very happy. They baked cookies together for Abby to bring back with her.

Bryn and Paige played with their respective Jazz Bands at a jazz concert Thursday night. My mom and dad were down visiting Kristin, and ended up coming to the concert. They surprised Paige while she was on stage. And we were all surprised to find out Bryn had a solo! Band will quickly switch gears to focus on Band Revue - their big annual musical. Bryn is one of three directors and is being very secretive about story. All I know the theme is LOST. Stay tuned.

I kept Paige home from school Thursday and Friday: sore throat, super tired, cough, stuffy nose, bad headache. The schools are asking us to be super careful with this H1N1 going around. Abby came home with Amy for the weekend on Thursday. Abby will not be able to see her boyfriend over Thanksgiving and it was his birthday, so she squeezed in another trip home. Thursday night I had my orientation at Kohls. Yup. I signed up for a seasonal cashier job. I also trained on Saturday and Sunday learning the register, but have not been on my own yet. Probably when I go in on Wednesday night.


Abby and Mark drove Amy to Kenosha on Friday to catch the Metra train to Chicago where Amy went to visit friends for the remainder of the weekend at Northwestern. Jeff and I had a big night out Friday night. We attended the Menomonee Falls Scholarship Auction & Dinner. It was held at a local banquet hall and was very nice. We saw a lot of people we knew and had fun at all the different auction games they held. Dinner was great and there was even a DJ to dance to later.

Abby got on the schedule at Hallmark for the full day Saturday. Bryn is having trouble getting back on the schedule at Walgreens. They moved her from the pharmacy to cosmetics, and now it seems they just lost her! She's trying...
Paige had demo practice for Tae Kwon Do and was eager to have us listen to their demo song and show us where her part would be. Abby had Mark over for his birthday and made him dessert. Bryn headed up to Oshkosh to watch our high school football team play Appleton North to find out who would go on to State! Jeff and I wanted to go, but I had to be at Kohls til 6 and with Paige kind of being sick we stayed and waited for Bryn to text us. We won 10-0! So we'll be heading to Madison this Friday!!!!!

Sunday Jeff went to the Packer game with a bunch of people from his work. Luckily it was a great game to watch. He had a full day, leaving at 11am and returning 11pm. Paige accompanied Abby to church in the morning and Bryn slept in after her late night at the game. Then Abby was invited to Mark's for his birthday lunch with his family. I had to cook an early dinner so Abby and Amy could catch their ride back to LaCrosse at 5pm. I've got my sister's new salon logo done and now it's on to website designs.

Jeff's Honda CRV is still sitting in the parking lot at his work refusing to start. We had to ask Bryn and Paige to find a ride to school the remainder of last week so Jeff or I could use their car to get to work. Jeff spent a lot of time on AutoTrader.com to find the best deals on the 2 cars we were considering: Mazda 3 and Subaru Impreza. So on Friday, we headed down to Evanston, IL where we drove one of each. The intention was to have lunch to discuss after both test drives, but we ended up just staying and sealing the deal on the Mazda 3. It's a fun car to drive and we're very happy with it. In the meantime, Jeff is working on finding a charity that will tow the Honda.

Last Saturday was such a picture perfect day, we couldn't pass up being outside for a football game. We drove out to Sun Prairie with our friends, Dave and Carrie, to watch our high school football team play in the quarterfinals of our Division. Each of us took turns shedding layers of clothing because the weather was so much nicer than we anticipated. It was a great game! We won 34 - 17! So now Menomonee Falls is on to play Appleton North in Oshkosh this coming Saturday night! Go Falls!

Bryn was asked to be a friend's sponsor for her confirmation. Quite a compliment. Bryn took her friend to church Sunday morning. Fitting. I've taken on another job: cleaning my office. John was looking for a cleaning person, and I volunteered. It pays good and it's only 2 hours every other week. I went downtown Sunday afternoon to work my first shift and I think I really spruced the place up.


Monday was Bryn's Cross Country banquet. Bryn was one of four team captains and you could see they were all emotional about their final season being over. The captains gave silly awards out to every teammate and the coaches.The coaches made several comments about how the captains coordinated extra practices and elevated the status of the team. Jeff is checking in with the HR person at work (regarding health insurance) to see how we should proceed with Bryn's bunion surgery. Bryn would really like to have it done so she's ready for track season.

Paige is now on the demo team for Tae Kwon Do, which is only for black belts who want to perform special tricks and/or routines. We purchased her a new, blue uniform and nun-chucks! Little scary. She'll perform for her first time for the Dec. 12th testing. I'm proud of how committed she's been to Tae Kwon Do and excited to see her in her blue uniform!

Jeff returned home from Virginia safely Thursday night. His fellow passengers included Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl! I had a crazy work day and finally got home to Paige by 5 and got her to Tae Kwon Do.

Jeff left early Friday morning to meet up with Bryn at UWL for a Campus Close-Up. Abby and Bryn went for breakfast in the building where Jeff was to meet Bryn. Seems like UWL is 4th out of 4 colleges that Bryn is considering. I'm still glad she toured it because it'd be a good school for her program.



Friday Paige and I both had off. I did laundry and ironed most of the day. Paige got to wake up early to babysit Bella and Lucy. Lucy is potty-training and when she started following me a little too closely around the house, I put her on the toilet where she did her first poop! Lucy and Bella were really disappointed they couldn't bounce on the trampoline, but I couldn't let them outside in the rain when it was only 40°! We all had plenty of fun with stickers (Bella know where all my scrapbooking stickers are), puzzles, the piano and beanie babies.

I took Paige and her friend to look for pumpkins Friday afternoon. What a bust! There were NONE left! We went to 4 stands! Some farmer felt sorry for us and gave us these for $2 each. Friday night Paige went to an insomniac all-nighter with a church group. She had a lot of fun. She slept all day Saturday and woke up in time to go trick-or-treating with friends Halloween night. I didn't get pictures because they didn't go around here. But one of Paige's friends bought all 4 of their pumpkin costumes. I'm sure they were too cute. Jeff and I handed out candy to the chilly trick-or-treaters, then walked over to a neighbor's for a beer afterward.

Driving to work today, Paige texted me that she forgot to bring a class project to school and could I bring it? I was over halfway to work, so I called Jeff. Jeff called me back that his car wouldn't start. So I drove back home, to school, saved the day for Paige, and then in late to work. Jeff looked at his car at lunch and tried to jump start it, but no luck. He's back there now, seeing what he can figure out.

Bryn saw the podiatrist today and he rated her bunion as "moderate." Contemplating surgery... Tonight I picked up Paige's "lost" cell phone from the movie theatre! Yup! They called saying they finally found it, probably got lodged in between the seats. Paige is now opting to go back to her green phone. Good news: we now have an extra phone for next time. Bad news: there will be a next time.

Bryn had her first band concert back on the 20th. The concert featured the Wind Symphony band, the Choir and the Orchestra. It was nice to see other groups we wouldn't normally see. The choir did that famous Journey song "Don't Stop Believing" you always hear on commercials for the TV show "Glee." Really cool to hear live. Bryn is finally 1st chair trombone. Unfortunately, because she's a big brass instrument we never get to quite see her when she's performing because they're in the back.

Bryn's coach took her out of racing the rest of the season. Disappointing not to participate in sectionals her final, senior year, but she wants to concentrate on working it out for track. I made an appointment for her to see a podiatrist to see if he has any suggestions on helping her foot pain. Bryn couldn't leave her team for the weekend, she cheered everyone else on at the Sectional meet on Saturday.

Paige, Jeff and I drove over to La Crosse Friday night to visit Abby for Friends and Family Weekend. Abby stayed with us in the hotel room Friday night and enjoyed the peace and quiet. The weather forecast sounded lousy, but it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day on Saturday. We walked around campus, but then chose to take Abby shopping for her Halloween costume rather than go to the football game. We did a drive-by of Abby's new house she'll be living in next year with her 5 closest friends. Very nice neighborhood. We'll have to wait til summer to see the inside. Paige stayed on campus with Abby Saturday night where they had a One Tree Hill marathon.
Sunday Abby had to part with her cell phone and was none too happy. Her screen would white out, then the entire display would read backwards! There aren't any at&t stores in the western part of Wisconsin, so we had to take it with us to find out what was going on. Water damage. So I had to send it in. Abby should have her replacement today. So poor Abby's been facebooking it and land-lining it for 4 entire days! And no texting!

We did get to celebrate Jeff's birthday when we returned home Sunday with a nice steak dinner and banana cream pie. Jeff's in Virginia. He flew out last night and will return Thursday night.

I put Bryn on the Amtrak today to La Crosse so she could have her time with Abby. Bryn and Paige don't have school Thu or Fri because of Teacher's Convention. I wonder if Abby will be happier to see Bryn or her SIM card from her old phone with all her contacts! Bryn's excited to finally have a chance to stay in the dorm with Abby. It's never worked out for her. Jeff will drive out to La Crosse on Friday and meet up with Bryn to tour the campus for a Campus Close-Up day she registered for.

So Paige and I (and Theo!) are holding up the fort. But not alone. Paige is having Miranda and Jennifer sleep over.