White Christmas

These are the Christmas flowers outside my door! There is another bunch getting ready to bloom and it looks like there may be daffodils growing in the front of the house.

Merry Christmas

Hey you Kids,
Merry Christmas! Love you Bunches and so glad that we can talk and touch base despite the fact that we all live so far apart. Thinking of you a lot today! LOVE YOU!

Betsy's Cookies w/ a Twist

Several nights ago, I was craving Betsy's M&M cookies. So at 10:30pm I started the process of making them. Like any true Billman/Dahle, I doubled the batch to allow for ample eating of the dough. The "twist" is that I used almond extract as opposed to vanilla extract. I HIGHLY recommend this twist, not because I am the big brother, but because it actually tastes really good.

The dough tasted so good that I had at least 2 dozen cookies worth,...
At 2:30am I put the final tray in the oven, and promptly fell dead asleep... something I do NOT recommend, unless you want to be rudely awakened 2 hours later to the horrible smell of something that is "not quite right." I snapped wide awake at 4:30am to that exact smell. Looked quickly at the clock, said several expletives, ran to the oven, and pulled out 12 perfectly blackened cookies that resembled hockey pucks.

The hockey pucks spent the rest of the night and all the next day on the front porch, while I spent the same time trying to make the air in the house smell just a little bit better. I judged the shelf life time for the hockey pucks to be about 2 years and 2 months....

So, do try the twist, and definitely do not fall asleep.

HEY Jeff's been here!

Welcome to the Blogousphere!

Weather Contradictions

The weather is so odd for December. While I hear about the snow on the east coast I look out my window at spring flowers blooming, three robins in my yard. Later I drive down the street and see deciduous trees that have colored leaves that are dropping all around. The weather doesn't spawn holiday feelings. Thinking of all of you though, does! Hope you all have had a nice weekend! Hope the Minnesota Thanksmas dinner went well, Greg and Laurie. Sending Sunday Evening Love and Hugs!

December 20th

Welcome to the Blog, Bailey!

It was a happy birthday!

Now that it is two weeks past my birthday, here is the birthday report! Thanks for all the birthday wishes - Bets and the kids made it a great one!
On Friday, Bets surprised me and took me to a nice restaurant for an early dinner. Then we went crazy at the Nickel-cade! It was a blast to go on a date together. Saturday, Bets made my favorite pie - raspberry cream! It is so delicious, and the kids enjoyed licking the spoons after she made the cream! Who wouldn't? Can't say I didn't lick my fair share!


A couple months ago Sam and I made a couple of bird feeders to hang in the tree outside our window. It took awhile but the birds finally found them. The kids love seeing the birds - it is cute to hear Hadley say "Bird" with excitement when she sees them.


On my birthday, I woke up to find this wonderful birthday sign on the window. Sam helped Bets make it. And to boot, two inches of snow had fallen overnight! Sam was almost as excited as I was. We hadn't had much snow all fall, so it was a great birthday present.

Sam loves to help with everything, and wrapping (and unwrapping) presents is included on that list! Not a bad job!

Hadley loves to talk these days, and she decided she needed to take over my phone on my birthday.

For my birthday treat (the pie was devoured the day before), Bets made some brownies so that I could blow out candles - Sam insisted we had to do it. Bets put a few candles on a brownie for me, but it looks like a mini-nuclear bomb going off. Imagine what 31 would have looked like!

Thanks to everyone for a happy birthday, especially Bets for all her hard work to make it a special day and weekend. Love you all.

SURPRISE!

Greg flew into Oakland last night! We are having a few holiday-ish days together.
What a nice surprise!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Adding more birthday greetings to you, Eric.
Have a wonderful day. Love and Hugs!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIC

I hope you have a really lovely birthday!!

Sending lots of love!!

Back Home

The NRC conference was good and it was great to see some of my MSU friends. I was surprised at how cold it was in Albuquerque! The temp went all the way down to 12 degrees! I am not used to that. Usually they schedule this conference in a place that is WARM! I was glad to have a shorter distance to travel this year--only one time zone difference. That said, I am pretty tired after a long week.
I like this blog idea! Just need to get Jeff and Laurie on now--right?
Sending love and hugs!

Thanksgiving Hunt

As many of you know, I travel to Pennsylvania to hunt with dad and Jeff just after Thankgiving each year. We spend some time together and ultimately hunt deer. This year was a new experience for me, as I had the opportunity to hunt New York for the first time. While we were in New York, Jeff and I hunted on Saturday, harvesting one Doe before being joined by dad and two of his friends for a hunt on Sunday. On Sunday, I harvested 2 more Does. These two days were a great experience with wonderful views of spectacular country.

Monday was the opening day for Pennsylvania. With 5 people in our woods, we had people in new places that we haven't covered before. I chose to be in a tree stand that I was familiar with and had shot deer from in the past. Around mid-morning one of dad's friends got too cold and requested dad's help getting to the truck to warm up. Nearing noon, I was brought to full alert by the sounds of deer moving through the woods. While I was quickly looking over the deer I could see, a large buck moved into an open lane that dad, Jeff and I had worked to clear over past years. Recognizing immediately that this was a legal deer, I made a shot on this buck. It ran back down into the gully that it had come from before popping back up into the lane a few yards further from where it had previously been. I made two more shots before harvesting this grand buck. After the deer was down, I asked Jeff to come help with this deer, as I did not have the proper tools or a camera. When he showed up, we both were filled with excitement to have such a magnificent animal as part of our many hunting experiences. While on his way to help me, Jeff called dad to let him know that I had shot a buck. He was only able to tell dad that it had at least 8 points as that was all I told Jeff before got to me. We kept dad in the dark on how big this deer was until he could see it himself. He was nearly speechless when he looked on this 12 point buck. Dad's comment was a question to me, "Why do you always have to come and shoot the largest bucks in our family?"

December 3 in Columbus

I'm feeling particularly un-Christmasy despite listening to Christmas music for six hours on end during my shifts at work. It feels slightly tortuous. Anyways, the pictures of your trees, Eric and Betsy, look festive and lovely.

I've been babysitting often for the Kennedy's. Here are some pictures of Will and Joey. Will started playing the trumpet this year, so I took mine over to play with him.

Joey enjoys making noises with it too. It reminds me of when I first started practicing in fifth grade. I think I made everyone a little crazy! I told Margaret how someone (one of you brothers, I think) :) said that I "sound[ed] like a sick cow." Well, thanks for baring with me during my practicing. I've been playing again (for about a week). Thankfully there aren't any neighbors below me yet. Hope it stays empty for awhile!

NRC Conference

It is time for the annual literacy conference so I am in Albuquerque until Saturday. It is fun to connect with the Michigan State Crew. I thought I would try posting something to the blog. The next time I will have to try pictures or something like that.

Christmas time is here!

Monday night we started getting ready for Christmas. Sam is so excited for Christmas this year. We got out all the decorations and he found the stockings that Bets and I had for our first Christmas' together. Today he wanted to put something (mostly candy) in one for Christmas the whole day. Bets finally convinced him to put toys in it. By the end of the day it was half full with toys and books! We got our trees up. Sam and Hadley have their own little one to decorate. Sam of course was super excited to decorate it. The big tree still just has lights but hopefully we will get less busy one night this week and finish decorating it. Here are a couple pictures from the night.

Decorating the trees

Stockings for hats and Hadley saying "Cheese!"

Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the start of the Christmas season.