Longest Night "Celebration"

If you can call it that. It consisted of being near comatose and watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition which we haven't seen in nearly a year. And it was a double feature, even more fun. And yes, I made Vic dinner. I had been slow cooking some of my special real spaghetti sauce most of the weekend (very low heat) and just really had to use it.

And we played with the puppy, Tigris. I love when training and play are so similar. Retrieve the toy and bring it all the way back to me and you get a treat! No wonder people have dogs instead of kids... they are wa-a-a-ay easier. But I'll still keep the kids. And the grandkids. They're even easier, it's just "Come to Gramma!" and "Do what your mother says." See, even I'm trainable.

Then we got a little visit from Alisha, Anthony and Adelaina. By the way, today, December 22nd is Anthony's birthday. And the boy can NOT HANDLE a surprise. Yup, he's a Peeker! It's all about talking you out of his gift before the day.

What an opposite from Vic. He doesn't even want a HINT about what he's getting. KEEP it a surprise and don't let me accidentally come across it or it ruins the whole fun of it. I'm still not sure where I land. I'm still just surprised when I get a gift, and often feel a little embarrassed. I'm the "unwrap slowly and save the paper" person. And yes, I have reused paper I've been careful enough with. It's now in vogue to do that, and call it being "environmentally conscious". Hah! No one can ever accuse me of being unconscious again.

Bad news is, I think I'm taking Bianca in for a mono test tomorrow, and I've asked Vic to go to the doctor to be checked as well. Isaac's been wiped with it and will have missed a month of school by the time he goes back in January. Bianca's been struggling with headaches and putting herself to bed by 9:00 and sleeping at least 12 hours a night, every night for a couple weeks. Vic's been doing basically the same thing for more than a week now, too. He comes home from work and passes out in a couple hours. He came home Friday and went to bed, tried to get up Saturday (well, his back kicks him out of bed after a few hours anyway), and just kept either going back to bed or crashing wherever he was. I found him on the floor last week - with creases in his face from the piece of furniture he was up against. (He's gonna love me for sharing this one.) So, as I type, I can hear that song, This is the Way We Live... bahm bahm, badum pum bummm... SO... it isn't looking like it's that bad virus that was going around, the fatigue is just so disabling, that I think it could be mono. The doc told me with Isaac that there is a bad strain this year, and it's affecting a lot of adults that should have already had it.

Okay, pictures. Let's see what I've got.
Oooh! I took some awesome pictures last week of the clouds descended over the super tall highway lights. They look like they are holding up the sky and creating tents of light. Ahh, the sights in Alaska in the winter are so amazing and beautiful. These shots were taken around midnight. In Alaska the winter nights are strangely bright with reflective light. The two shots were taken on different exposures.