Christmas was good, the usual chaotic holiday. Everyone gets along well playing with their new stuff. Sam brought over the game Catch Phrase to play on Christmas Eve. I learned several things about my family. Number 1, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Grandma couldn't get it through her thick skull that the game was not password and you could use more than one word clues. For example, the word she had was "shrimp." Kelsey and Maggie were on her team, she could have said, "It's a food that is orange, it lives in the ocean, we sometimes have it at parties, you peel it, you can dip it in cocktail sauce, another word for short, etc etc. Instead the clue she gave was simply "Crustation." Now I have no idea why my 9 ear old couldn't get shrimp from that??? By about the 20th round we were finally get her to give better clues.
number 2 lesson was that I wasted all my money on private education for my kids. Erin was on my team and the word I had was Killer Whale, the fabulous clue that I gave was, a large murderous fish that lives in the ocean, Erin was so proud when she just knew she had it figured out and yelled at the top of her lungs with all the confidence in the world, "lobster." Yeah Erin a lobster is a huge murderous fish. It wasn't much better when Lauren had the word "Beauty Pageant." Her clue was.... Something that I should be in!I can't imagine why her partner couldn't get that based on her clue.

All joking aside, it was nice having everyone home, even if our dysfunction comes out full force. We have a lot to be thankful for this year. The week before Christmas, Sam went to the Taco Bell by her apartment to grab some food on her way home. It was about 10:00 at night, she was in the drive Thru and had just ordered her meal when some idiot held a gun to her head from outside her car and demanded that she get out of her $%&#*@B car, she immediately started screaming, the louder she screamed, the louder he demanded she get out of the car, the whole time holding the gun against her temple and violently trying to open her car door with his other hand. She continued to scream and hit the gas, luckily there was enough space in the drive thru for her to go forward. He kind of fell backwards and ran away. I can't tell you how thankful I am that I can write this blog entry and joke how she is still waiting for her Crunch Wrap Supreme. She had a guardian Angel that night. A few days later a policeman on a stake out had the same thing happen to him with an attempted carjacking, only he was shot in the face, Sam was much luckier.

My kids draw names at Thanksgiving and buy each other gifts. Ryan had Sam's name and he bought her a $10 Taco Bell gift card, a rape whistle, mace and finally her real gift, new headphones for her I-pod. I told her to make sure she brought the mace home, God knows if she left it laying around our house, someone would be going down.