A year in review

 January:
The new year started out with a lot of snow and Rick and I spending the best New Years Day ever. We did noting. It was great, we had the best lazy day ever. Sitting around watching movies and eating crap all day. It was just fun to be together and relax!

 We got our new puppy Morgan

 I had a girls night out and went to Minneapolis and saw Girls Only The Secret Comedy of Women

 February:
Liam turned four

 We went to Vegas

 Rick Got his new bow

 Josie discovered glue!

 Cassie and I took a mosaic class

 Grandma Trenda turned 90 and I turned 49

 April:
The month started out with yard work 

 I got my new road bike

 Rick won the MSAA State

 Cassie hosted Easter for the Becker side

 May:
Rick and I biked the Canon Valley Bike Trail 

 Rick built the grandkids a sandbox

 Christa had her baby shower

 We had everyone over for a fire and supper

 Rick put in a new storm door with a doggie door in it.

 June:
Rick and I both got new bikes for trail riding.

 I shot my first outdoor 3-D

 We finished the rock garden

 And best of all in June Eil was born

 July:
July brought hot weather and kept me inside so I did a little sewing 

 Rick did the biking part of the Waseca Triathlon

 August:
We went up to Diane and Rod's up north for a Becker Family vacation. Everyone had a great time.

 We finally got some trees cut in the yard and now have lots of wood for the fire place.

 The best thing about August was that Oliver was born. We now have 4 grandbabies!

 WAC had the Jack Zimmerman Benefit shoot.

 September:
Rick and went to South Dakota and biked the Mickelson Trail 

 October:
We finally finished the bathroom upstairs.

 Rick, Colette and I biked the Mankato River Ramble

 Rick shot a deer

 I shot my first deer with a bow

 Rick got a new truck

 We made apple pies

 November:
Amy and Liam joined Rick and I for a Turkey supper.

 We had a new shed built

 Cassie and I took a cooking class

 We had leaves and acorns everywhere that had to cleaned up

We had Thanksgiving at Jeannie and Mitch's house for the Becker side

 December:
 We got the bedroom done

 Eli and Oliver were baptized

And lastly Christmas. We had Christmas Eve in New Richland and Christmas Day at our house for the Becker side. We are having Christmas with the kids on Friday.

I am sure I left lots of stuff out from the year but this was just some of the highlights. 2011 was a good year and I hope that 2012 will be the same.
Later Sharon

A Pine Cone Christmas

Me helping all the kids open there gift from Great-Grandma and Grandpa

Josie and Eli

Rick making a rice krispies bar Christmas tree

                                                              THE PINE CONES

  On Christmas Eve Rick and I went down to his Mom's house in New Richland to be with her and the rest of the family. We went to church and then had supper. After that we opened presents and then played dirty bingo for our homemade gifts. It was a nice evening. On Christmas day for the first time ever we had Christmas for the Becker's at my house instead of Grandma Becker's house. Mom was not up to it with having her knee surgery and it is just getting to hard for her to host so many people all the time. Dad was very happy when  I volunteered to have it at my house.  We had lots of good food and it was fun to see everyone. Linda decided that she should hide all of the pine cones all over my house that I was using  as a center piece on the table. I had gotten them when we were in SD this fall and then used glitter spray on them, you can't really see the glitter in the picture. Anyhow I have found them all now and they are back on the table awaiting our next Christmas party. After everyone left I understood why Mom was ready to give up hosting, we were exhausted. It is a lot of work getting everything ready and trying to keep everyone entertained. And then there is the clean up after everyone is gone. But I think it went well and was happy to do it this year. Not sure how many more years we will be able to keep the family tradition going as everyone families grow. It is always a hard thing to give up traditions and move on. I remember how sad I was when we stopped going to Grandma Trenda's house every Christmas day. And I also remember how sad I was when all the aunts and cousins stopped getting together on the Becker side for Christmas. But now as my family is getting bigger and the kids all have kids and the house is getting more and more crowded  I can understand why they stopped it. It gets to be a lot of running for everyone. Anyhow our last Christmas party is going to be on Friday with just our kids. Liam and Josie are excited to open more presents. It is so fun to see there excitement this year over Santa! Yesterday I watched Liam, Josie and Eli from 12:30 to 6:30 because Amy's daycare cancelled again! She was not to happy about it. It was lucky for her that I had the day off and was able to watch them. Josie went down for a nap at 1:15 and did get back up until 4:30. I think she was all tired out from Christmas. While Josie and Eli were sleeping Liam helped me take down all the Christmas stuff. I was going to leave one of my trees up until after Friday but the girls all said it was okay to take it down. We will just set the presents under the window :) Today I had to go back to work :( But I only have to work 3 days and then I have another 4 days off so I guess I should not complain to much. It should be a very slow week at work because a lot of people take the week off. Next week the students all come back so I am going to enjoy the last few days of winter break. Later Sharon

Family

Linda, Dad, Mom, me and Diane

This is a picture of my family that we took at Thanksgiving. I thought it was a good picture of us so I thought I would share it. It seems that as all our lives get more and more busy with our own families that we don't all get to get together very often. I remember when we all had little kids we use to go to Mom and Dad's house every Sunday. When I live out of town I use to go to there house and spend the whole weekend. I don't know how Mom did it. She worked full time and then every Sunday we would all be there and she would make us all a big meal. I never thought anything of it. They were good parents to put up with all of us every weekend. We had lots of good times and I am glad for the memories.
Today on my way to work I had a little scare. I was just coming out of Faribault on my way to Northfield going north on HWY 3. I was going around a curve when I saw a car in the wrong lane. I thought to myself, oh I am just seeing it wrong because we are on a curve. Then a split second later I realized that it really was in my lane and it was at a dead stop. I was going 60 mph headed right for it. I slammed on my breaks and went sliding to a stop, the roads had a little frost on them so I did a little fish tailing. When the dumb ass in the other car saw me he put his blinker on and backed into his driveway. I could not believe it! If I had not stopped I would have hit him head on. I was so shook up that I put myself into a asthma attack. By the time I got to work I was coughing so hard I was having trouble catching my breath. I finally had to use my inhaler. My chest is finally starting to feel better. Not only was I pissed at the dumb ass I was pissed because I have not had to use my inhaler in a long time. 
Today is my last day of work and then I have 5 days off. I am excited to have so many days off and really excited that I have Christmas day and Christmas Eve off this year.
Rick and I went to the store on Sunday and I hoped it would be the last time I had to go before Christmas but it is not working out that way. I am going to have to go back again to pick up a couple things that I forgot. I also have to go to the liquor store. Hopefully they will not be to busy.
Later Sharon

Creepy

So now that I just finished checking the building at work for the last time for winter break I think it is okay to write about how creepy it is. I only have to check the buildings on the weekends during breaks since they are all in use during the week. During the school year I open them on the weekends. I have been working at Carleton for almost 13 years now and I have never been as spooked as I have been this winter break. When I fist started working here I was on overnights and a lot of those nights I had to work by myself. Now they have hired more people so the night guys hardly every have to work alone. Anyhow when I worked nights it never really bothered me to be in the buildings locking up or walking around campus. There always seemed to be students around and the custodians started to come into work at 4:00 a.m. Then after about a 1 1/2 years I got to go on day shift. I start work at 6:00 so on the weekends it is usually pretty dead up here until at least 9:00. I can go and open buildings and only see one or two people. Now at break times it is a whole different story. I can go pretty much the whole morning and never see a soul. I go in every building and there is no one around and most of the lights are off. I have to go into rooms and check alarms and make sure everything is locked up. Some of these building are very, very old. On holidays it is even worse. I am pretty much the only person on campus. It has never really bothered me until this past break. I think it started when my first weekend to work over break, Thanksgiving weekend,  I opened the main door to a building and had a bat fly at me. It scared the crap out of me! Then I found out that on that same weekend some creepy homeless guy had made his way into one of the building and had been staying there the whole weekend. I had been in and out of that building and walked passed the room he was staying in several times over the weekend. He claimed that he had gotten into the building when it was open and just stayed. Anyhow he was a young male and when he was confronted he got pretty mouthy. I was glad that I did not run into him while I was working by myself that weekend. So every since I  found this out it has really given me the creeps. I keep thinking about how anyone could get into these building during the day and hide out. They are all big buildings with lots of hiding spots. We once had a student that decided that he was going to live in the Chapel and hid under the floor boards in a crawl space and slept in closets. So anyhow anyone could be anywhere at anytime! And to make things worse I started watching the show American Horror Story and it is really a creepy show. Now I think about that too while I am checking some of these old buildings. It is a good thing that it is my last weekend to work for break. Next time I work weekends the students will all be back. Hopefully by the time spring break comes around I will be over checking over my shoulder and jumping at every little thing!

 

 

 

 

So work had it's annual Christmas party last week. I usually do not go even if I am working but this year my boss dragged me and my coworker Steve to it.  It is at the president of the colleges house. It is really just a gathering where everyone stops by for a short time and chats with the president and other people from the college. When we got there Steve wanted to have his picture taken with the president so I took it. Then the president's wife decided that I should be in the picture too so that is the picture above. I have to laugh at it because I am so short. I never realize just how short I am until I see myself in a picture standing next to a normal sized person. So the president of the college is really a nice man. He has been here less then 2 years and  I have been very impressed with him. He is a really down to earth person and very easy to talk to . He seems to really care about the employes of the college.  Other then work I have been busy getting ready for Christmas. Christa decided that this year for the Rugroden Christmas we should all make the presents that we give. We play dirty bingo with them and usually spend $15. Well that hooker Christa got everyone to agree to the making it yourself idea and then she is not even going to be there! It is her year to go to the Wadekamper side for xmas eve. So now I have been making gifts. I have several thing going because I can't decide what to give. It is hard because it has to be for men or women and there is two teenagers that play too. I also babysat a couple of days this week. Well really only one day because the other day I just picked them up from daycare and had them for a half hour. I also managed to work out four times this week. I have not done that in awhile. I figure I better run at least twice a week so that I can eat like a pig over the Christmas weekend. I guess this has been long enough so I will sign off for today. Later Sharon