Passport Photo

Here's Madison's passport photo, taken today at Sears. This year, Madison is going to be increasing her "countries visited" count by one more, as we hop on a Disney cruise ship, and visit the Bahamas. So, that's three countries down: China, United States and Bahamas. At this rate, she'll have visited all the countries of the world in ... 193 years. We haven't gone through the passport process, but we should be doing that later on this week. Daddy wanted to get that out of the way because it takes a little time to go through all that, as those familiar with the process are well aware.

Today was another day to chill. But probably a little more literally than we anticipated. You wanted cold weather? Here it comes! It wasn't freezing cold outside, but the wind made it feel so. This was the kind of wind you could officially term as an "Arctic Blast." The manger was a goner - it was the first to get blown over. it survived the whole season, but now it's time to put the characters away. For the time being, they're resting comfortably on the porch, out of the rain and sort of looking out over the front lawn.

We did a lot of playing around today, and even got some other things done too: we went to Home Depot and got some more insulation for the house - there's a definite chill in our master bathroom, and we think we've got what we need now to take care of that. After our trip to Home Depot, we used one of our Christmas gifts: a gift card to Cracker Barrel. This is perfect weather for Cracker Barrel, isn't it? Mom got the roast beef and Daddy got the meat loaf. Madison got grilled cheese and french fries, which don't exactly go with our whole sentiment, but she ate 'em, and that's just fine with us. We were all eating that warm "comfort food" tonight, and even did a little shopping afterwards in their store. It's such a nice place to wander around. EVERY SINGLE TIME we go to ANY Cracker Barrel, Madison knows where to go: the toy section. She inevitably starts pulling out the smaller toys to play with, and eventually gets Daddy to play a game of checkers with her. Daddy can't resist that, of course. She's getting better with the rules of checkers - maybe this time next year she'll be a real pro!

We got some gifts for NEXT Christmas, and got a new calendar as well - lots on sale there. Also, Daddy got some neat old cowboy music too. We did a bit more shopping than we usually do there, but we had a gift card, so that helped out.

When we got home, it was time for bed pretty quick. At least for Madison. Mommy and Daddy stayed up and watched a movie in bed: "Sherlock Holmes." It was research for later - we'll have more on that in just a few weeks...