Happy New Year!!

Today was the day that Avary got her bandage off of her hand from the surgery. We were all really happy to see that thing go. This morning CJ came into the bedroom informing me that today Avary was getting her "cactus" off. All day Avary has been saying that she is alright but her "cactus is off" and now there is a mark. You can see where the doctor drew a line on her thumb for the incision. It looks bad, but it isn't. The ink from the pen makes it look bad. She uses her hand here and there, but still babies it quite a bit.

We have had a busy and eventful couple of days these last few days of the year. After having a cold sore from H-E-double hockey sticks, I tweaked my neck a bit that caused some problems, and got a sore wrist from playing Guitar Hero III, but it is all going away. CJ painted the dog green right before she smacked her head on the bath tub and cracked her eye open and Spencer keeps falling down the stairs. It has been quite the vacation for the Schumann household. We are all sad to see it end, it has really been fun despite injuries and surgeries.

Spencer did want me to mention that on Christmas Eve we went to a house in our neighborhood that was AWESOME on its lights. The video on the site doesn't do it justice, but they have rigged up their lights to music and when you go and see the lights, you can tune into the radio station that they are rigged too. It was really awesome and we are seriously thinking about making it a Christmas Eve tradition. The web site, in case anybody wants to check it out is:

lightsinmotion.com

You will have to see in past years, but it is still neat. You all will just have to visit us some Christmas and see it for yourselves because, like I said, the video and pictures don't do it justice.

Have a great New Year every body!! We love you all!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Merry Christmas everybody! What a day it has been. The dog got up around 6:30 this morning and we have been up ever since. We had a great Christmas here in Colorado. The girls had so much fun opening presents and then playing with them.

Santa really left a lot of stuff for us this year:


Spencer got an Internet Tablet (pocket computer), new jammies, and new work shirts along with a gift certificate to get some new pants. Sierra got an airbrush for cake decorating, Guitar Hero III, and a quilt kit that she is in-love with. CJ asked Santa for a toy dragon and he delivered:

Along with a ton of other gifts such as new jammies from Geewah, building blocks, movies, and much much more. Avary asked Santa for a princess Pony, and he too delivered:

Along with matching jammies, hair stuff, jewelery, Elefun the game, and much much more. Geewah was surprised with a plane ticket to Alaska this summer from Sierra's sister, Analee. She also got a pair of new slippers, a gift certificate for a massage, and other fun stuff for her to enjoy.

All in all it was a great and successful Christmas for the Schumann household. Merry Christmas to everybody, we love you all and hope yours was as good as ours.

Final Grades

Well, the results are in and I am VERY pleased. It was a rough quarter with my back going out again and my mom being hospitalized. I thought for sure that I would get really bad grades that would lower my GPA, but as it stands, I am very happy and pleased.

Nutrition..................................B
Chocolate, Confections,
and Showpieces.......................B
European Tortes.....................A-
English Composition...............A-

I am really relieved that I got a B in my chocolates class, because my final sugar showpiece didn't score really well on our grading sheet. I thought for sure I was going to get a C or, at most, a C+. My grade went up in English Comp from a B+ to an A-, so I am happy about that, and I remained a B in Nutrition, which I am not surprised about because I missed a quiz. As for Chocolates and European Tortes, I never really knew my mid term so I am pleased about those grades.

Have a great Christmas, everybody. I know I will now!

Operation

As some of you might know, Avary had an operation on her left thumb today. We discovered that she had "Trigger Thumb" when she broke her arm earlier this year. All went really well. She did really good and all the nurses and doctors just had a fit over her, as well they should. They allowed me to take her back to the operation room so that I could be there for her while they put her under. It was really hard to see her like that, but I'm glad that I was able to be there for her. She has been throwing up a bit since she woke up, but the anesthesiologist said that that was pretty normal. She took a little nap this afternoon and is acting a TON better. She is very talkative and alert. Hopefully we can feed her some dinner tonight and have her keep it down. We love our little Belle and so happy to have her in our lives. CJ is being a gentle big sister and sits by Avary watching movies. What a perfect big sister CJ makes.

Finals

Well, it is finally here, the last week of school. Good news was that I didn't have any written final tests!!! YES! Bad news was that I had a large sugar showpiece to do, a torte that I made up, and a short story to write for finals. It wasn't bad, once I got the showpiece done. It was so nerve racking doing that piece, but I got it done. Here are a couple of pictures of my final sugar showpiece. I took pictures from every angle I could. The small piece in the background with the purple flowers was a classmate's. I couldn't get any good pictures of my piece without having hers in it.



It is a "Four Seasons Tree". The red things on the top are blown sugar apples (that was the smallest I could get them). The green are the leaves, the pink are blossoms, the yellowish stuff in the back represents fall, and if you look close and hard you can see the ice cycles for winter.
He said it was a nice tree, but I don't think I am going to get a good grade on it. You should have seen some of the other pieces. My piece was the tallest, approx 2 feet, and the widest, but my "execution" of the project was what apparently knocked my grade down.

The torte turned out nice. Here is a picture. It is the same torte I made for Thanksgiving, if you remember.

I added the chocolate band around the sides, which was probably one of the toughest things I have ever done, although I would rather do chocolate bands than sugar showpieces. Anyway, I had to temper both kinds of chocolate at the same time and keep them tempered all on the day that it was -8 degrees the night before. The marble slabs we use for tempered chocolate literally froze the chocolate as soon as we poured it on the slab. The point of this story is that the dark chocolate didn't scrape all the way off because it had set too much so you can see it in this picture. He tasted it today and at that point he had said that it was the best torte in the class. Granted he hadn't tasted them all, but he didn't have anything bad to say about the taste of the torte. I got a really good grade on it, which sort of makes up for the bad grade on my showpiece.

Decorations

We got our inside decorations up today, it is such a relief. I was starting to feel like we were the only people on our block that didn't have their decorations up yet, but we did the inside today. Spencer said he will do the outside tomorrow, I'm really excited.

So, Spencer and I were on our walk tonight with Jersey, and he decided to take me by a house that he said was just...well, I had to see it for myself. Anyway, we walked past it and, I SWEAR, it looks like Tim the Tool Man Taylor lives there, Home Improvement for sure!! I could not believe it. It was absolutely...overdone.

Just before I saw it, I was telling him about when I was little and my Aunt and Uncle would do up the outside of their house, just full of lights. Cars would be lined up around the block to see how spectacular their house was. I miss those days, but this house, if only you all could see it. Words can NOT describe this house. I reassured him that my Aunt and Uncle's house was not that bad, that it actually looked good the way they did it, tons of lights but not "novelty" items. I am going to have to see if I can get a good picture of this house, but of course I know for certain that the picture would hardly do it justice.

It played music, had lights woven all through their grass, Christmas Mickey and Minnie, about 100 Santa's, nativities, anything you could possibly imagine, they had it. They had their front blinds open too, and the inside looks just as overdone as the outside. Amazing.

Nighttime Story

Last night, when Spencer was shoveling the walk way (YES!! IT SNOWED!!), a neighbor just across the street from us came over to him and told him that he had been robbed the day before, Wednesday, and asked if we had seen anything between 4 o'clock PM and 9 o'clock PM. He said that his laptop and some money were taken. Naturally we didn't, so we just went about our night.

Well, we haven't been setting our alarm at night since we got Jersey because we have to take her out in the middle of the night and tend to forget the alarm is set. Last night, right when we were going to bed, I thought I heard a crash, like blinds being messed with. Spencer didn't think he heard anything, but went looking anyway just for me, nothing.

Well, I was sort-of awake last night, meaning I was trying to go back to sleep, at about 2:45 AM when I heard the chime from one of our three doors to outside. My eyes flew open, my heart skipped a beat and then went right into double beat. I finally got the lump out of my throat and woke up Spencer:

"Spencer," I said, "I think I just heard the chime on the door!"
"Are you sure?!"
"No, I'm not sure, but I think I did."
"What should we do?!!"
"I don't know!"

We laid there in bed with both of our hearts beating like drums. We finally said a little prayer, but we were way too wound up to calm down. Finally, I came up with the idea that he should turn the light on just outside our door and see if he can hear anything, so he did. He didn't.

Then he checked on the girls, they were OK and he looked down and saw the lap top. He then went downstairs and looked in the kitchen and the front room. When he looked in the front room, he noticed that the door from the house into the garage wasn't locked, so he locked it.

When he came back upstairs, he mentioned that that door wasn't locked. I had nervously told him that I had locked it before we went to bed, I was 99.9 % sure I did. When I told Spencer that, we both started to shake and decided to call 911.

Two police officers came at about 3:10 AM and walked through the rest of the house with their big shiny guns out, even talking about it now, I'm getting nervous. Anyway, they looked out in our garage, in our basement, and in the crawl space. Nothing. Thank HEAVEN!!

After they had left, Spencer remembered that he had gone out into the garage AFTER I had locked it because he had shoveled a walkway from our patio window to Jersey's "potty spot" and hadn't relocked the door. The cops had come to the conclusion earlier that some wind or air shift had pushed the door ever so slightly enough to set the chime off, which I didn't think was plausible, but Spencer demonstrated it and sure enough, it can happen.

After having a rock the size of Texas lifted off my chest, I scalded Spencer for not locking the door, not really scalded but reminded him he needs to do that, and we set the alarm and went to bed.

Nothing like a good burglary scare to put you to sleep at night.

Small Sugar Showpiece

Well, my very first sugar showpiece. My hands HURT!! Three pairs of latex gloves didn't help much, but it would have hurt a ton more if I hadn't used them. If you can't tell, it is a bird sitting on a piece of drift wood and then the base and a couple of different things he made us put on there. He had made one and then told us to replicate it. The base is just that, a sugar base. The shiny green thing is marbled sugar with a sugar rose and sugar leaves set on it and a ribbon in front. Then there is lace sugar behind that to kind of mimic water or something. Then the piece of "drift wood" which is straw sugar (sugar that is pulled and has lots and lots of tubes). The bird is blown, I blew it, and the feathers are sugar feathers that I created under my very hot heat lamp that kept my sugar molten. Like I said, my hands hurt, but the up side of working with sugar is that I am no longer afraid of making my Grandma's "White Stuff". I can't wait for my final sugar showpiece, especially now that my hands already hurt.