Rick & Carol Celebrate 40 Years!

Two days before Christmas, December 23, 2007, Rick & Carol Amos celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. Reid, Elizabeth, Rikki, Doug, and I hosted an open house party in their honor. What a great day that was! We had about 40 people - all told, which was rather amazing being so close to Christmas! Rick's dear friend from junior high on, Jim Biggs, and part of his family (wife and two of his four kids) drove all the way from Pickens. Now THAT is a good friend.

This is Elizabeth with her Great-Great-Uncle Rex Amos!

Elizabeth was an angel. She even greeted a few guests with an extended hand - so very grown up! She sampled a great amount of the food and some of our friendly guests were handed pre-nibbled cheese, cucumbers, etc. She ate what seemed like a pound of cheese...and however much of the pumpkin roll she could reach on the plate. She didn't nap until nearly 4:00 that evening when Grandma was able to get her to sleep, only three hours past her usual nap time.

The Weavers (Gene & Dee) and Jim Biggs chatting with Rick.
And here is a sweet moment of Elizabeth hugging Nana.




Here is a naughty moment of Elizabeth copping a feel of my "girls." Bad girl, BAD!

The photo wreath turned out rather pretty, if I do say so myself!

I am totally loving the photo ornaments that I did! They were a huge hit, too!

Well Said, Hertzel!

From today's Times West Virginian:

25 reasons life is worse in Michigan
By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN — I know, we here in West Virginia get offended when outsiders start throwing the stereotypes at us about going barefoot and being uneducated, but we just sort of grin that toothless grin of ours and take it.After all, that does mean there are two things they can’t say to us:

• If the shoe was on the other foot …
• What you don’t know can’t hurt you …

You grow a tough skin when all those barbs are being hurled at you, especially when you can’t shoot back at all.

Ah, but now our moment has arrived.

See, Michigan has taken our basketball coach. Michigan has taken our football coach.

It’s time to question how in the world they can see Michigan as being better than West Virginia. In fact, here’s 25 reasons why Rich Rodriguez will find out that the smog is always thicker on the other side of the fence.

1. He has to root for the Lions, not the Steelers.
2. Driving in Michigan makes a Morgantown traffic jam look like open road.
3. The state empties out in the spring as all the snowbirds go to Florida.
4. Summer runs from June 21 to July 6.
5. He’s going to have to spend half his coaching time teaching his players how many time outs you get per half. Call that a subtle Chris Webber reference.
6. He won’t be allowed to change the helmet.
7. Beating Michigan State isn’t as easy as beating Marshall.
8. The stadium is called “The Big House,” which sounds like a title to an old James Cagney gangster movie. Seeing it up close and personal you know it should be called “The Big Dump.”
9. Two state policemen won’t be enough to protect him if he loses to Ohio State.
10. He won’t be the first Michigan football coach to use a “hurry up” offense. Fielding “Hurry Up” Yost’s Michigan teams played so fast and scored so fast they earned the nickname of “Point A Minute.” In his first season at Michigan, they outscored opponents 555-0 and in his first five seasons under Yost they outscored opponents 2,812 to 42. Try matching that.
11. He won’t be the first West Virginian to use a “Hurry Up” offense. Yost is a native of Fairview.
12. It’s hard to find spangled women’s clothes in Michigan’s best shops.
13. A block M is only a block W knocked upside down.
14. Does Nike make snowshoes?
15. How do you tell a team not to celebrate and showboat at a school that produced Desmond Howard and his famous “Heisman Trophy” end zone celebration?
16. Talk radio is a little rougher on you than Tony Caridi, Greg Hunter and Travis Jones.
17. No more driving Mercedes-Benz. It’s Ford or General Motors. He’ll just have to settle on a Cadillac.
18. No one ever wrote a book entitled “303 Reasons Why I Hate West Virginia and You Should, Too” like Paul Finebaum did about Michigan.
19. The Michigan academia will correct him when he uses his favorite word “irregardless”. What he really means when he says that is “regardless” or “irrespective.”
20. If he’s smart he won’t recruit Flint, Mich., even though it does produce good athletes. Flint, you see, was rated “the third most dangerous city in the United States in 2006.”
21. Don’t know where Detroit ranks on that most dangerous list but Bill Simmons of ESPN once wrote that he was glad the Super Bowl was in Detroit because “I always wondered what it would be like to get shot.”
22. He’ll get to know filmmaker Michael Moore personally.
23. Some wise guy (that would be me) is going to write the story of his defection through Motown titles. To wit: • Basketball coach John Beilein says goodbye to Rodriguez as he leaves for Michigan: “Someday, We’ll Be Together” (The Supremes) • The rumors begin: “I Heard It On The Grapevine” (Marvin Gaye) • The rumors get louder: “What’s Going On?” (Marvin Gaye) • Rodriguez gets an offer, then talks to WVU officials: “Shop Around” (The Miracles) • West Virginia asks Rodriguez not to leave: “Stop In The Name of Love” (The Supremes) • Rodriguez thinks the offer over as Michigan awaits an answer: “You Keep Me Hanging On” (Diana Ross) • Athletic director Ed Pastilong learns Rodriguez has decided to go to Michigan: “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (Thelma Houston) • Rodriguez tells Michigan he accepts their offer: “Let’s Get It On” (Marvin Gaye) • Michigan says fine, but you have to beat Ohio State: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (Diana Ross) • Ed Pastilong laments: “Where Did Our Love Go?” (The Supremes) • Rodriguez flies to Michigan: “End of the Line” (Boyz II Men) • And then the final chapter, Rodriguez loses to Ohio State and has to catch “The Midnight Train to Georgia” (Gladys Knight and the Pips)
24. There will be no statue of him built outside Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium.
25. He’ll never get to play Pitt again.

I Missed You!

What a nice way to be greeted when coming to pick up Elizabeth!

Yesterday evening when I arrived at Nana & Papa's home to get Elizabeth she jumped down and yelled, "Mommy, I missed you!" and ran over to me in the doorway and hugged onto my leg.

It melted my little heart! (Maybe I'm not done buying for her this Christmas...)

About as classy as the wife

If you can believe what you read, (at least the nations #1, Terrelle Pryor, is reporting this that) recruits found out that Coach Rod was headed to the University of Michigan before he told the Mountaineers. That seems to me as if Coach Rod was taking a play straight out of the leopard-print-loving wife, Rita's, handbook on how to be a class act.

I also appreciated this quote from WV's governor, Joe Manchin (taken from Yahoo! news article by Larry Lage, AP):

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin blamed the involvement of what he termed "high-priced agents" in college sports.

"I have known Rich for most of his life, from a boy whose only wish was to play football at WVU to a young man whose only wish was to coach at WVU," Manchin said in a statement. "Something is wrong with the profession of college coaching today when a leader's word is no longer his bond."

Way to go, Joe!

E's funnies

On Tuesday evening, Reid and Chuck were doing the prep-work to install the tub surround in our bathroom (YEA!), so it was just Elizabeth, Kennedy, and me hanging out in the living room.

I smelled a peculiar odor and asked E if she pooped. "Nope," she said - her typical reply. About a minute later, she pulled the back of my jeans with her index finger and looked in that region and said, "You pooped." I get that she has picked this up from me, among others...and I pray this is one of the few lovelies that she picked up from her Mama (but I'm not holding my breath.)

Later that evening (when both of our backsides were clean as a whistle), she scooted HER rocking chair (which before that, despite Anne's attempts at thievery, was MY rocking chair, and before that was PAPI's rocking chair) right in front of the tree - nearly touching the branches. She was admiring several of the ornaments. After about 5 minutes of her rocking in her chair looking at the ornaments she said, "Tree, I watching you." Made me giggle.

Mounties...

To quote my daughter, "No! No! No! No - dammit!"

Alright, she didn't say this about the Mountaineers play (or lack thereof) on Saturday night. She said this to her Nana when she was getting her clothes changed.

But it still pretty much sums up how I feel about the situation.