Home from a week long vacation at my Grandma's house in Iowa. No snow so no sledding this year, oh well. Here's what I did do: (Hopefully I'll fill in the photos later.)

• Saturday, 21 Dec

  Day of travel. Planes. blah.

• Sunday, 22 Dec

  My brother and I decorated christmas cookies. We are so very artistic. Not pretty but very colorful! :)

• Monday, 23 Dec

  Dad, bro and I went out in the sheep pasture to play with grandpa's old shotgun. I considered carefully, before I went out to play since I am very much not a gun person. But, what harm shooting at cans into the creek bank?

  I'm not a good shot: I think I was hitting the coke cans about one in four shots. We'd do a set, then move back about ten or fifteen feet. We went through two boxes of bullets. It was fun.

  There is a llama guarding the sheep. When we entered their pasture, the herd came up to see us. The sheep just veered off, but the llama came straight at us. I turn around and both Dad and Bro are behind the fence and urging me to get the fence between me and the llama, too. ha. I did, but then offered my hand to Dennis the llama when he came to the fence. He sniffed and blowed out twice on my fingers then turned to join his sheep. Grandma says Dennis never gets near humans, and I wasn't able to get close to him again, tho I went out several times during the week. humph.

• Tuesday, Christmas Eve

  In the Morning: A 2.5 hour walk through the woods and fields with Dad and his bro (my uncle). Tough walking with all my layers of clothing and coveralls and boots through cut corn fields, weeds and climbing creek banks and all.

  Main reason I went was to see a recently dead deer. Shot and left, moronic hunters. Partially eaten by the local carnivore critters. Very interesting.

  Also, a pig skeleton, head intact until I pulled it apart. Put it back together and brought over it's broken shoulder blade.

  Yes, there were live animals as well. Deer, a fluffy little coyote, Great Horned Owl, a confused blue heron.

  Evening: celebrating xmas. The christmas play at the church, by the kids. Big dinner. then presents, Mom, Dad, Bro, Gram and great Aunt. Happy. oh, yes, I forgot to tell you, my big Xmas project was making blank books for everyone. I think everyone liked them! Bro wrote something immediately, and Gram had about two pages filled by the time I left. Cool! That made me happy!

• Wednesday, Christmas Day

  Just relaxed most the day. In the evening, went to Uncle's house to play Trivial Pursuit with some strangers (to me at least, Uncle remarried and her family is huge and I can never remember anyone's name). We did lose the game, but we got all our pie pieces first.

• Thursday, 26 Dec.

  Clean up of Grandma's back yard area which is actually connected to the sheep pasture. Out in the country, she doesn't get trash pick up, so she burns her trash and saves unburnables in a shed to drop off later. But wind storms have blown stuff around and so an area behind and next to one of the barns was a mess.

  I found a small canine skull. And a sheep skeleton strewn all over the place. I gathered up the bones and put them in a pile under a tree. And lots of stuff that I couldn't haul away, like old machinery, the old toilet, the old bathtub. heh. it's a fun place.

  And then I went out to the pasture to play with the sheep. Sheep Number 215 was quite friendly and she ate corn right out of my hand. :)

  In the evening Uncle and his wife came out and they played cards. I had already lost many card games, so I abstained that night. Brother is also on a losing streak which is surprising, and I have to tease him about it. me, I always lose, that is just something which is accepted around there. :)

• Friday, 27 Dec

  Another xmas celebrated. My cousin and his wife arrived first. Then my Mom's bro and his new wife and her kids whom I don't know. Dinner then presents again. And again, I think everyone liked the blank books. goody.

• Saturday, 28 Dec

  Yet another xmas. At Dad's bro house with Dad's two sisters and various family members, new and old.

  Went for another walk, mowed trails made this walk much easier. Dad, Bro, Uncle, an Aunt and new husband. Not so much excitement on this wall, but nice and peaceful.

  This year we bring one present and we did that stealing game. I got the last number, stole a christmas CD that my bro had brought, got it stolen from me and then decided to open the last package to end it... a bottle of Irish Creme!! Yay. Aunt's new hubby got stuck with the blank book I made... turns out he's kind of a poet, so that turned out okay too.

  Left for the airport a bit after four, and SO got me home at about midnight on Saturday night. He is so wonderful: he had some dinner made, he had cleaned up my room and vacuumed, and he had scrubbed my bath tub in case I wanted to take a bath!! :)

Boy, that was long and obnoxious without pictures.