Decked the Halls

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each and every one of you and your families. We hope that 2009 was a blessed year for you. As Joe is stringing the lights on our tree, a project that always tends to be a ‘stay out of the way’ job, I thought I would take this time to write our 2009 Christmas letter.

We have had a wonderful and fun filled year despite the economic crisis that has been so prevalent in all our lives. Although Joe’s hours at work were cut back some, we are thankful that he still has a job. My business has remained steady despite losing a few clients that sadly had to close their doors. Always sad and disheartening to witness. In May, my mother and I flew out to Kansas City for my oldest niece’s high school graduation. I had not been to the Midwest in thirteen years so it was fun to go back for a few days. We were lucky enough to be able to stay with my brother and his family and we had a fabulous time visiting. In late June, we headed to Edisto Island, SC for a family vacation with my sister and her family. We had never been there before and found it so beautiful, quiet, remote and relaxing. No high rises along the beach. Just a quiet, quaint beach town, like beach towns used to be. We stayed in a nice condo just two buildings down from Amy and her family. This was Frankie’s first trip to the ocean! We spent a week there, playing in the surf, watching the dolphins, flying kites and enjoying each other with no interruptions. In early July, we went to Cataloochee for our annual camping trip with all our friends for four days. Always a great time in the woods, playing in the creek, hanging out around the campfire, eating s’mores, seeing the elk, and sleeping in tents. Not more than a week after that, Joe and his mother flew out to Sante Fe, NM for our oldest niece’s wedding. All his family was there for the celebration, all the way from Spain and Ecuador! He had a fabulous time spending time with all of them. So, all in all, we had a great time with our travels throughout the summer.

In March, Meghan, Topher and TJ turned nine years old. Hard to believe when you look back at those early days that we made it so far. In August, the oldest four started back to school. James is in his final year of middle school, in the 8^th grade. Wow, high school is only a few months away for him. Yikes! Topher, TJ and Meghan are in 4^th grade this year. One more year in elementary school for them. Frankie will start kindergarten this coming August. Holy moly. James was on the cross country team this fall and fell right into the rhythm of being a runner. He has also participated in two 5K runs over the past few months and plans on doing more in the coming year. He is taking a break from sports during the winter months, but will try out for track and field in the spring. The triplets are all in the Odyssey of the Mind program after school and Joe is their team’s coach. (OM is a fabulous program. If you get a chance, check it out online at odysseyofthemind.com) They also participated in Super Saturdays at the University of NC-Asheville for six consecutive Saturdays in the fall. It is an enrichment program for A/B students. Topher took a class called Math Discoveries; TJ took hand-built pottery; and Meghan took beginning knitting. They will undoubtedly do it again in the spring. All three of them are also in the chorus in school. As you can imagine, all these activities keep us all hopping, but they’re fun and the kids are learning so much. We are so very proud of each and every one of them for their talents and accomplishments.

We spent a lot of time this summer and fall canning. Made our traditional trek out to Hendersonville to the orchard for apple picking in early September. Our canning this year included: bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, peach butter, 49 quarts of grape juice (from our own grape vine!), applesauce, apple butter, apple pie filling in a jar, and spiced apple rings. We ended up running out of room to store our canned treasures, so Joe built a gorgeous canning shelf which sits regally in our dining room, filled with beautiful jars of our concoctions.

We are still loving our beautiful old farmhouse and we are decking it out for the holidays, of course. The kids are excited about Christmas and we’re having fun making and baking cookies and candies and other holiday favorite goodies. Christmas Eve will find us at church and then home for our grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup dinner. Christmas day will find us up early, opening gifts and sipping coffee and hot cocoa in our jammies and then having our traditional Christmas day dinner of leg of lamb and other yummies with family. We always hope for a white Christmas, but chances are slim on that one.

We love you all and are blessed to have you in our lives. Enjoy this special time of the year and know that you are in our thoughts and our hearts!

Love and Peace,

The Kanes-Lori, Joe, James, Topher, Meghan, TJ and Frankie

You know how sometimes you just have to look up from what you’re doing on your computer and stare out the window? Exactly. And that’s what I did yesterday morning around 10:30 or so. I work from home and my office is downstairs in the front room, so my desk looks out the window onto our front porch and that overlooks the front yard out to the road. Now, we live right on Charlotte Hwy/74A in Fairview, so there’s a good deal of traffic and not very many pedestrians. We do have the occassional walkers, joggers and bikers pass by though.

As I stretched and looked out the window, I noticed two young men (somewhere between 18-22 years old is my guess) walking by. No big deal. Then they stopped and stood at the end of our driveway. A bit odd, but maybe they saw something across the street or were going to wait until a large truck drove by or something. I waited. They pointed at something on the ground. I followed their point and realized they were pointing at James’ rip stick (it’s like a skateboard).

Well, Taz (as in the Tazmanian Devil) took over my body. I flew out of my chair. (Mind you, I’ve been sick for the past few days. I had only gotten up about an hour ago. Still had on my jammie shirt and some sweat pants; hadn’t brushed my hair; no shoes on. Lord only knows what I looked like!) I grabbed the doorknob and pulled, which pulled and slammed the screen door shut, because it doesn’t like to shut all the way on its own. All this caused a great deal of noise. As I pushed the screen door open, I could see the look of surprise and shock on the boys’ faces. They weren’t quite sure where all the ruckus was coming from as they were looking all around them and then started to run. I screamed at the top of my congested voice, “Put it down, NOW!!!!!!!!”. They were looking every which way, running, and terrified of this crazy woman storming out of the house that had just a moment ago been so quiet and serene. The boy holding the rip stick looked confused. Put it down? Keep running? Finally he just threw it on the ground and they took off.

I walked across the yard to go get the rip stick. I could see them about halfway around the bend, so I shouted, “Nice try, boys!”. They were quiet for a moment then one of them said, “I was just going to try riding it down the road, ma’am. I swear. I’m so sorry, ma’am.”

I guess the Taz guise was mighty effective. An apology and some groveling. Lord knows, they could have easily gotten away with it. It wasn’t like I was going to take off down the road chasing them. But apparently, seeing some crazed woman coming flying out of the light green farmhouse was enough to put the fear of God into them. When I walked back up on the porch and went back inside the house, Frankie, our five year old, was there wringing his hands, looking scared to death. “What happened, mommy? Is everything okay?”. Guess I scared him, too. Poor baby.

Every night, I read a bedtime story to our youngest son, Frankie. He’s five now and let me tell you, he is a little spitfire and full of himself. He is one ‘wild and crazy guy’ as Steve Martin would say.

The other night I read him his story and then we turned off the light and I lay down next to him to cuddle for a few moments and talk. I’ve learned that if I just hang out there with him and we talk about his day for maybe five minutes, he goes to sleep pretty quick. So, as we snuggled, he, very seriously, said, “I need new eyebrows.” Now, in my 14 years of parenting and my ah, hem, 45 years of life, have honestly never heard anyone say they needed new eyebrows. And he was so serious about this. I played along, desperately trying to quell my internal giggling. (Come on, you would be struggling, too! Admit it!) “Why do you need new eyebrows, Frankie?” I asked. “Well, these are old, mommy. I need new ones.”

“But, Frankie, I’ve had mine for 45 years and they’re okay. And James has had his eyebrows for almost 14 years and he’s never gotten any new ones.”

“Yeah, mommy, but mine are old. So, you can either put the new ones on over the old ones, or you cut my old ones off and put the new ones on there, but you’d have to be really careful not to cut my eyes. Maybe you should just put the new ones on over the old ones.”

Now, please keep in mind just how serious this issue is for him and I am doing a unbelievably fantastic job of keeping myself in check. Very proud.

“Okay, Frankie. We’ll see what we can do but I’m not really sure I know where we can get some new eyebrows. Maybe you should just get some sleep now, okay?”

“Okay, mommy. Oh, mommy?”

“Yes, Frankie?”

“Knock knock….”

That was just it for me. And now, after the eyebrows, Frankie has hit the knock-knock age and I just have to make a dignified escape from his room before I explode with pent up laughter!

Frankie