Which Cullen Woman are You?

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Christmas Day

We had a nice visit in Memphis for Christmas. On Christmas day, we enjoyed sleeping in until about 9:00. Then, we tortured the girls by working in the kitchen for awhile, getting breakfast things going so that they'd be ready after the presents were opened. Oh, how many times did we hear, "Can we open presents now?" Making them wait was fun!

Here's Grandpa opening one of his gifts.

One of the pleasures of being the primary photographer and blogger is that I can take photos of what I want, and then say whatever I want about them. So here's Grant getting into his stocking. He received what every old, decrepid man needs, heating pads!

And then, here's Grant getting what every little boy at heart needs, a marshmallow shooter.

After the presents, we finished making breakfast. I'm making the traditional sausage rolls here.

And then the final holdout was fun. You might want to watch this one twice . . . once to see Holly's reaction, and the second time to catch the subtle hilarity of Lauren's comments.

Christmas Band Concerts

Just want to share the Band concerts. I lost some battery power during Lauren's concert, so I don't have a picture, but you can hear the band pretty well.


Here's Holly's concert. She's playing the saxophone, third from the far left.

In Lauren's concert, my batteries started to die, so no picture, but we have sound!

Elf Yourself

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

What kind of fan are you?

Have you got it this bad?

You know what is really bad? . . . this tree is complete, but the traditional tree in the living room is still in Stage 2 (lights - done; garland - done; ornaments - not done) Of course, that's my fault, I just haven't been motivated yet. I guess I know what I'll be doing on Saturday!

He wanted to know if we could leave this tree up during the entire basketball season? I said, "Sure, as long as the Tigers are winning. If they lose after Christmas, the tree comes down."

Lauren's early Christmas gift

Lauren auditioned for the first time for Mid-State Orchestra yesterday morning. She was one of 55 french hornists to audition. The morning consisted of running around, waiting in line after line after line, a lot of confusion, a very, very noisy warm-up area and then more waiting.

She had to wait about 20 minutes for her turn after warming up. During that time, she was blowing into her horn to keep it warm, but a side effect of that is that more and more moisture builds up in the tubes. Right before her turn, she told me that there was too much built up in there that she couldn't get out. When she blew into it, you could hear the gurgling sound and the notes sounded off. Anyway, long story short, she went in to audition, was asked to play a few scales, and then was eliminated before auditioning the prepared music. We both felt so bad, it was just kind of one of those things where things just didn't work out. But! the good thing about it is that we know what to expect when she auditions next year. We'll be more prepared!

She was in quite a foul mood after that experience. I was hoping I could just keep her from wallowing into the deepest of despair until we could get home, because I knew there was quite a surprise waiting for her. I'd been watching the pianos for sale on craigslist.org for the last week or two. On Friday, I found one that was in our price range and not too far away. Grant and I went to look at it Friday evening and Grant and some friends picked it up Saturday morning. When Lauren and I got home, there it was!

We couldn't figure out a way to hide it until Christmas, plus we figured she'd enjoy playing it while she had extra time off for the holidays. Grant got a big ole' hug for this gift!

Grant's Birthday

Also on Thanksgiving weekend, we celebrated Grant's birthday. He turned 30 (plus 13) -- that's what he's been telling people.


We left Alex City after breakfast on Sunday the 30th and traveled to Newnan, GA to visit Donny and Chrissy Langley. They fed us a delicious lunch, we enjoyed visiting with them, seeing their beautiful new home, seeing how much the kids have grown. And we got them to sit for this photo! (Notice the excitement on Collin's face!)




When we got home that night, Grant had a few birthday presents waiting for him. Here he is with his new Indiana Jones flick.


And then he opened A Major Award that the girls and I thought he'd get a real "kick" out of. (Get it?) Good thing the shade wasn't FRA-JEE-LAY!





I don't think he was thrilled with it, but I did notice that yesterday he watched A Christmas Story!

Holly's Birthday

Holly celebrated her 13th birthday in Alex City at Grandma and Grandpa Jones' house. Here's a few photos of her opening gifts. Poor girl wanted a birthday cake, but we weren't very motivated because of all the Thanksgiving pies. But Lauren made her a cake and we ate it, we just didn't get a photo. Sorry Holly!

I asked Grant to take photos of Holly while she opened gifts. He wasn't really very into it until he started acting goofy. Here's a couple of his more "artsy" shots!

And then of course, who can resist the self portrait?

Black Friday in Alex City

Sometimes I'm brave enough to face the shopping crowds for early morning deals on Black Friday. Most times, I just like to sleep in (sleep off my turkey hangover). There was one deal I didn't want to miss this time. And since I was in tiny little Alexander City, Alabama for the holiday, I figured my chances were better at scoring than they would be in a metropolitan area. So, I woke up at 4 a.m., threw on some clothes and hit Hwy 22 bound for Alex City Walmart (about a 25 minute drive). I arrived at the parking lot expecting to see a few equally thrifty (uh, make that desperate) bargain hunters. The parking lot was fairly full and I was happily surprised to see that this Walmart follows the pattern of my hometown Walmart and lets shoppers in before the magical 5:00 hour. Instead of waiting outside in the cold in a long line like I've done before at Target, many of the Walmarts will let shoppers in early.

You have to hunt for the "specials" (code for limited quantities). They are positioned on pallets in the middle of the aisles, wrapped tight in plastic with little signs taunting you with the deep discount price. But the desired pallet might be anywhere in the store. If it's a special toy, you might find it in the aisle next to the housewares. If it's an electronic, you could be looking for it in the aisle next to sporting goods. The Walmart employees try to be helpful if you ask for what you are looking for. But just as often, they don't really know and you'll get a response like, "Aye thank thar over at th' fabric center, but Aye'm not shur. Try thar firs, then if y'caint find it, try over at th' garden center nexta th' pottin' soy-el."

I was fortunate to find my electronic product (a portable DVD player for Holly's birthday) in the aisle next to menswear. The pallet was surrounded by eager shoppers. I got in line behind a woman who had herself blocked in by her shopping cart. No one could get too close to her. I stepped up, smiled shyly and asked, "Would you mind handing me one of those at 5:00 when you grab yours?" She said, "Sure." So we waited. I observed women tearing open the plastic on the pallet (despite the employees asking them to stop), grabbing two or three of the items and stacking them up in front of where they were standing and then just keeping their hand on it. Another woman actually took out a pen and wrote her initials on one of the boxes (like that would stop some of the crazies from trying to grab it anyway!). One woman started counting down at about 4:57, she shouted out "3 minutes!" The Walmart employees were just shaking their heads. Then she shouted "2 minutes" and everyone laughed nervously. At the one minute mark, another woman started counting down 59-58-57-56, but no one joined in and her counting fizzled out. Then, just before 5:00, the countdown woman said, "that's close enough" and she grabbed her stuff. Everyone else just followed suit. My shopping cart woman grabbed three DVD players and two cases and handed one of each to me. I said, "Thank you and Merry Christmas" then I turned and dashed away from the mayhem in the aisles. I walked through sportswear, grabbed a pair of sweatpants for Holly, a couple of turtlenecks, then headed for health and beauty aides (that's where they had placed the "special" vacuums, crockpots, and foot massagers). I didn't need anything there, I was just wandering, enjoying the moment.

Dad had recommended I try to check out in the garden center, so I went that direction. Sure enough, there was almost no one there and two cashiers at the registers. I walked right up, paid for my stuff, and walked out through the Christmas trees and gas grills to my car.

I was back in the car by 5:21 a.m.

Then it took me another 20 minutes to get this photo. It's nothing spectacular, but I could live with it (you should have seen the 35 other shots that I deleted!)

Oh, the things we'll do for a blog post!

"How 'bout them TIGERS?"

It's that time of year again sports fans! I'm starting to catch the "T-I-G-E-R-S" fever. I have my desk calendar marked, my game schedule taped to the wall in my office, my CBS College Sports subscription up to date so I can catch games on the internet, and my remote control to the DVR polished and loaded with fresh batteries. The Tigers are going to make another run for the Final Four 2009 and right now Tyreke Evans (McDonald's All-American #1 Freshman recruit in nation) and the other 5 freshmen recruits are looking promising right out of the gate. So, if your'e a TRUE BLUE TIGER FAN I say "How 'bout them Tigers?!"

Photo by Lauren and Holly Denton

Holly's Blog

hey,
check out my other blog at the link above, this is my personal blog.
holly

Some things are nice to have again

I had a small moment of happiness the other day. After putting away the Halloween decorations, I got out the Thanksgiving stuff. It was easy to find this year because the holiday stuff is organized in the garage (we won't talk about the rest of the garage). When I placed the turkey and the pilgrims on the mantle, it was one of those satisfying moments in life. Last year when we were in the apartment, all of the holiday stuff was in the storage building. We found Halloween, Christmas, and Easter, but couldn't find Thanksgiving at all! At the time, I didn't miss it. But being able to find it this year and set out the pilgrims was pretty cool. It brought back memories of 2004 when we bought our house in Cordova. We had moved in the house in late September, so when autumn arrived, we went a little crazy at the Hobby Lobby (or Garden Ridge, I don't remember . . .) and bought a bunch of fall leaves, pumpkiny looking stuff, and this cute little pilgrim couple. It was the first time we'd ever had a mantle to decorate!

Anyway, I was also thinking about how fragile our creature comforts are becoming. I've been thinking a lot about if we became unemployed, how we'd pay for the house and stuff like that (I know, it's depressing isn't it?). Then I thought about if we became homeless, how bad things would be. That was when I really appreciated those little pilgrims. That's something I probably couldn't take with me if times got tough. I thought about the Pioneers and how precious few things they were able to transport across the plains, how they sold most of their valuables for a pittance just so they could buy the necessities for travel.

Well, I won't tell you about all of my other thoughts that day, but many of the thoughts creeped in because of the layoffs that occurred in my company last week, all around me, but skipping over me. I'll only say that in thinking about the worst case scenarios, it made me really appreciate what we have now and the way the Lord knows us, knows what we need, what we can handle, and He blesses us.

Get out the vote!

Obama may have won because of the black and youth vote, but that's not what it was looking like in Mt. Juliet this morning.


I mean, is Grant waiting in line to vote, or is he waiting in line to play checkers with the old-timers? Hey, you could become a Senior Citizen while waiting in that line!








Here, you can barely see it, but that's my finger on the touch-screen voting panel. I voted with my left hand so that I could take this photo with my right hand. Do you think it will still count?

USSBA Southeastern States Competition in Chattanooga

We went to Chattanooga on Saturday for Lauren's final band competition for this season. When we arrived on Saturday morning, the band unloaded and practiced for a few hours at Baylor School's football field. The band director's mother had worked at Baylor for a number of years and arranged for us to use their field that morning.

Chaperones didn't have much to do while the kids practiced, so they just chilled out there in the end zone.

Here's Grant setting up some of the props.

After lunch, we loaded back up and headed for the UT Chattanooga football arena. Nice Place! The kids unloaded, warmed up, then performed around 3:00. After that, we headed back to the parking lot where one of the band parents had been preparing a BBQ dinner for all the kids and parents. Here's a shot of his girlfriend fanning the flies away from one of the cooks as he chopped up the pork.

This guy has a nice smoker too!

After dinner, it was time for the awards. Our band won the championship for their division.



Here's Lauren with her french horn section.

Eve of Halloween Eve

It was the night before the night before Halloween and it was the only night available for pumpkin carving. Everytime we think we'll have an evening to just "chill" -- something always comes up. We're too busy!

Lauren carved a music pumpkin. It has a treble clef, a bass clef, a quarter note, and a two eighth notes. That's a pumpkin seed on her forehead. Goofball!

Holly wanted her pumpkin to look like he's vomiting. Check out the carved sweat droplets on it's face. I've felt like that before, have you?

MJHS vs Clarksville -- but we were there for the band!

Thursday night, MJHS played Clarksville (and won!). But we went to see the band. This was a televised game, kind of a rarity, and the Middle School Band was there to perform with the High School Band. I think Holly enjoyed this game much more than any of the middle school games she attended.

Lauren said she messed up bad in her half time performance, but I couldn't tell. For her, lowering her horn a half beat too early is messing up bad! I guess in competitions, if a judge catches that, points would be taken off.

Here's a few photos:

This is one of the camera guys. I sat beside him for the first half. After half time, I never went back up there. Made me too nervous that I might knock the camera over or something.

This is a photo of Holly doing the Jump on it dance. She loves this part. My camera can't handle the motion. Here's a photo of some of the Tote-n-Tow guys waiting on the sideline during the half-time performance.

This last photo is of Lauren, taken under duress. After the half-time performance, the band director releases the band during 3rd quarter for a break. I was forcing Lauren to put her shako (hat) back on for a photo. Couldn't get her to smile for anything. Teenagers revenge . . . ok, I'll stand here and let you take my picture, but I'm not gonna smile.