A Very Whisler Christmas

Puzzles!!! Mom bought us a bunch of Europe-themed puzzles to work on while we were all home for Christmas. I slept through a lot of it, but did manage to help some! Here are some of the finished products:

Notre Dame, Paris, France

Nyhavn, Copenhagen, Denmark

Paris, France

Dun Aengus, Aran Islands, Ireland

We also finished another Ireland one, and are still struggling with the Moscow sky above St. Basil's Church......

And a little more Christmas:

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Liam was kind enough to send me the picture of our other finished puzzle:

Stay tuned for the final one.....it might be a while :p

A New Christmas Tradition

For I-don't-even-know-how-long, it has been a Christmas tradition for my siblings and I to watch Die Hard on Christmas morning. I am not really sure how this came about, how Die Hard became our favorite Christmas movie, but such is life. I do suppose the tradition started partially because of the 6 a.m. rule.

Most of our presents were wrapped and under the tree before Christmas, but Santa would come in the night and fill our stockings and leave, unwrapped, our best gift, the "Santa gift." So, naturally, we were very excited to get up as early as possible to see what was left under the tree (and start munching on the candy in our stockings). So, we would decide before bed that whoever woke up first would wake up the others straight away and we would head down to check out the gifts together. Generally, this was around 4 a.m. Now, for so crazy reason, our parents did not want to be woken up this early, so the rule was to not wake them up before 6.

Those of you skilled at math will notice this leaves two hours between children wake up time and present-opening time, and when you add in the antsy excitement of Christmas morning, two hours feels a lot like ten. So, how to make the time go by faster? Well, Die Hard, of course! Pop that baby in and spend a couple of hours enthralled by the antics of John McClane. Fantastic, I know.

As we've gotten older, we've stopped waking up quite so early, and, more importantly, we let the 'rents wake up when they will, but we always watch our movie sometime during the morning.

And now, we've added a new layer to our Christmas movie watching tradition.

It all started at karaoke about ten days before Christmas. Josey and I were trying to decide what movies to watch together and had a great idea -- let's do a 'degrees' thing, watch a movie, and then the next movie must have an actor from the previous movie. We started with Peacemaker, and then (using Nicole Kidman) went to Moulin Rouge. And then, on the way to picking Amber up from the airport, the truly amazing idea hit Josey: the 12 movies of Christmas -- get from Peacemaker to Die Hard in exactly 12 movies! We filled Amber in, and really started pounding it out. There were a few rules: an actor can only be used as a link once; we must own each movie; and only two movies cannot be used from the same series. And, of course, it would be nice to have movies we actually like. So here are the 12 movies of Christmas for 2011:


1) Peacemaker (Nicole Kidman to)
2) Moulin Rouge (Ewan McGregor to)
3) Star Wars: The Phantome Menace (Liam Neeson to)
4) Batman Begins (Christian Bale to)
5) Equilibrium (Sean Bean to)
6) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Hugo Weaving to)
7) V for Vendetta (John Hurt -- thanks Momma for that! -- to)
8) Alien (Signourney Weaver to)
9) The Village (Joaquin Phoenix to)
10) Gladiator (Richard Harris to)
11) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Alan Rickman to)
12) Die Hard!!

We actually worked from both ends, and tried to get from LOTR to Gladiator in 3 moves. It was all thanks to mom, who came up with the John Hurt connection. So, we spent the next week popping these movies in (and, honestly, hardly watching them). The most fun was actually the making of the list. Next year, we will be adding in complications -- like getting movies from certain genres or picking several movies we want included. And, of course, we'll be starting with a different movie. But will always be finding our way to Die Hard.

Greensboro, baby

"What goes around comes around" I think that's an adequate saying for the circumstances. Last year, I was stinky enough to trick mom into thinking I was staying in Denmark with Rasmus over Christmas, and surprised her with coming home. I promised her I would do no such thing this year, since I really didn't know at the time if I would come back or not, and I decided not to, I didn't want her secretly hoping I was.

Anyways, I arrived in North Carolina late Tuesday night, and Amber and Liam picked me up at the airport -- with Pepsi One and Cheerios to keep me occupied on the way home. I'm pretty sure I only got about 2 hours of sleep that night -- after being awake for basically 24. (Don't worry, I've more than made up for it over the last day and a half; even a six hour nap in the middle of the afternoon, which, by the way, is more like Russia time than Europe time).

Amber and I can't remember what we did all the next day -- went to the grocery store......but we decided to go out to eat at TGI Fridays. We were going to meet Liam there after he got off work, and Amber told me that one of his friends from out of town was coming to eat with us as well.

We get there, say 'hi' to Liam, and sit down. Then his friend comes back from the bathroom -- and it's a girl (I was expected a boy from some reason). wait. Oh. my. goodness. I know your face!!! I literally did a double take. AUDRA was sitting across the table from me :o

She flew into Charlotte a few days ago, rented a car and drove down to South Carolina to visit Megan, and came back up to surprise me!!!!!!! Wooo!!!!

So, we've been having a blast. I fell asleep when we got back from the restaurant and missed some dough making, but we made more cookies the next day, and went shopping and went to see the new Twilight movie. We've had grilled cheese and fasta pasta and eaten out at some of Amber and Liam's favorite places. We went searching for gemstones and walking around Blowing Rock, and played some Rock Band. A-mazing!

:-) It's good to be back.

There goes the baker with his tray, like always...

...the same old bread and loaves to sell!

France -- a dangerous place for any-a Disney fan. Where a simple greeting turns the day into a musical and a mere passerby into a chorus member. I'm staying in a little town (it's a quiet village, every day, like the one before) called Ferney-Voltaire, just across the border from Geneva. Proof it's small, you ask? How about a look at my neighbors:

Yep, we've got cows.

Every morning, I send the boys off across the border and into a mystical land of underground tunnels and particles that travel faster-than-light. (Don't worry, I get to visit before I head back across the pond.)

Anyway, the weather is beautiful, the mountains surrounding are lovely, and even the cows - with their jingling bells - have a certain charm. Also, our hotel room has a spiral staircase, which, though slightly impractical, is pretty cool, too. Not a bad way to spend a couple of weeks.