Caroling And La Guardia

LOL.  Last night was priceless.  But before I go into all that, I need to write about Sunday.  Sunday was the day the Youth Group went caroling.  I brought Ryan’s gift and the gift for that one old lady with me, (I had to turn back around to get them cuz I forgot them the first time . . .) and I was off to the church.

It took about twenty minutes for everyone to get there, but once everyone was, we piled into three different cars, (okay, two vans and a car,) and were on our way.

I loved it.  I loved singing, I loved being there and making these people happy, I loved seeing that one woman conducting as we sang Jingle Bells, (she was better than Mr. Croft!) and then we got to the place that I’d been waiting for.  The one with that really enthusiastic old lady who always applauds and is so happy to us.

We went into what I guess is a dining hall and there she was.  So we went through our songs and this year, when I asked if I coulddo a solo song at least at the place where that woman was, I had backup routing for me to be able to do a solo.  This girl named Danielle, (my God, she grew!) recognized the song I wanted to sing and was saying that Mr. Croft should let me.  Well, when we finished the general carols, Mr. Croft said if I wanted to stay behind and sing to her, I could, and that I should meet up with them afterwards.  So I went up to the table she was at and said I didn’t know if she remembered me, but I’d been coming caroling for a few years and that last year, while I hadn’t been able to come, I’d gotten her a gift and thi year, I did the same thing.  Then I gave her the Christmas bag with a little snowman figure, a picture frame with arose on it, and this decorative bottle thingy.  (I don’t know, it just looked really pretty.)  Then Danielle, who’d stayed behind with me, said that I was gonna sing to her.

O course, embarrassment took over for a little bit and I claimed not to be able to remember the lyrics.  But Danielle gave me the first line and I went from there and sang the entire song for her, (and the other people in the room, cuz I can get pretty loud.)  When I was done, she was saying how I made her night and how wonderful it was and everything.  And she hugged me so many times and just held onto my hand.  I held onto hers, too.  I know she’s not, but she reminds me of Nana.  And holding her hand . . . it was like I was holding Nana’s.  Her hands were slightly different shaped, but the feeling was the same.  I wonder if my skin will be like that when I’m older?

Anyway, I hated to leave her, but we finally said goodbye, and went to the last place we were going to carol at.  Lol.  I was losing my voice by the time we got there, so I really didn’t sing out as much as I had at the other places.

Then we went back to the chapel and had hot chocolate, cookies, cake, and whatnot.  I only had hot chocolate, simply because my throat was getting to me.  Mike and my dad had both had colds the week before caroling and I was afraid I was gonna catch something.  I haven’t, thankfully, but that didn’t stop me from not coming near them.

I had some hot chocolate, though, talked to Mr. Croft and some of the other people, gave Mr. Croft my gift to Ryan, and then took off.  I stopped at Staples cuz I knew they sold drinks, (and of course, knew that Rob was working!) and went in and bought a Sprite.

I came home, glad that I was the only one here, and sat down to write about caroling and that old lady and everything, but something stopped me.  I didn’t want to write just yet.  So I turned my laptop off and decided that I wanted to make those peanut butter cookies that my mom has the recipe for.  So I attempted it, but when the recipe called for brown sugar, I couldn’t find any.  Instead of just putting more white sugar in, I figured, "Hey, cinnamon and nutmeg should be a reasomable substitute!" and added those in instead.

Yeah . . .  That wasn’t my best cooking venture.

They don’t taste bad . . . but they’re like gingersnaps, only nutmeg.  And they don’t taste very peanut butter-y.  Oh, well.  I’ll try again soon.

Well, as I was making those, Mike calls me from Dan’s cell phone and says that the airport screwed them over.  (They were supposed to pick up their mom who flew in from Nebraska Sunday afternoon.)  I asked what he meant and Mike said that their mom wasn’t at the Newark Airport, she was at La Guardia.  You know, that airport in New FREAKIN’ York?!?  So he asked if I could look up directions and I said that La Guardia wasn’t enough for me to go on, but my dad might know how to help.  So I gave him the Staten Island house number and told him to call me back if he wasn’t there.

About fifteen minutes later, he calls back and asks me to see what I can find out from Google or something.  So that’s what I did.  I googled it and actually found a map from the La Guardia site itself.  I gave them the directions as best I could, cuz it wasn’t exactly a detailed map.

And, poor Mike, he got home at about ten to one in the morning and had to work the next day!

Okay that’s enough of that.  I have more I need to catch up on, but this about covers Sunday.

Bye! 

P.S. — On a sad note, today is the one year anniversary of Ivy’s death, and yesterday was the two year anniversary of Rusty’s death.