Broomball and Legos...

Friday night was Pen Air FCU sponsorship night at the Pensacola Ice Flyers hockey game. More than 600 people - employees and their families - represented Pen Air.


Rodney, Will and Xan were, there of course, watched the game, played chuck-a-puck and watched me play broomball with my coworkers.




As part of our sponsorship opportunity, we got to play broomball between the first and second periods. The Marketing dept. challenged the IT dept. to the match up. The game was 3 minutes long, sneakers on ice, brooms in hand and inflatable ball being smacked around toward the two hockey nets.


The IT Team


The Marketing Team


Marketing won 2-1, with YOURS TRULY earning the game-winning goal! Here are the sequence shots my friend Brynn got (I'm the one in the sensible knee pads!):







Saturday morning, Xan was feel quite creative and industrious, creating a "bad guy Avatar jet." Will assured us he only helped when Xan couldn't squeeze the pieces in right without breaking part of the jet. The design is all Xan's. Not bad for 3.

Will's straight A's = hibachi

Will came home with straight A's again... and couldn't decide where he wanted to eat. So, Rodney and I decided that the kids might get a kick out of hibachi at a restaurant called Tokyo II. And they did. Especially when our chef, Charlie, set stuff on fire, like onion towers, shrimp and the grill itself. Will liked how the eggs were tossed up and cracked on the edge of the spatula. Xan especially liked the scallops sizzling and bouncing, making a "pffft" sound. He announced to our neighbors that they were farting. Fortunately, they had an 18-year-old son and were able to laugh about it. I was fairly mortified. Rodney loves eating there since it reminds him of his cuisine in Japan while he was stationed there. I just love eating good food and being entertained while I do it!

Scrapbooks, wing sauce and Avatar...

I don't have any photos to share this week. It was a pretty standard week of work and school, depending on who you are in the Guthrie house.

I spent most of the weekend 25 minutes away in Orange Beach, AL, where a local scrapbook store was holding their annual beach retreat crop. I taught a couple of classes there. It was nice to be with scrappy people again.

Rodney and the boys hung out with the Stevens family most of the day Saturday. Rodney also made a new hot wing sauce that he's quote proud of and the kids love. I haven't tried it yet, but promised I would soon.

Today we all headed out in to the rainy weather and went to see Avatar. I didn't tell any of the boys that it was a 2 hr. and 40 min. movie because I knew I would get resistance. I was a bit concerned that the younger two boys wouldn't be able to sit still and pay attention for that long. But I needn't have worried. Their attention was held and we all liked the movie - even Rodney, who does not like sci fi stuff. I had told Xan that it was a Star Wars Avatar movie, so he would know what to expect, sort of. He took me literally. Throughout the movie, he kept asking Rodney when the Clone Troopers were going to show up. He was pretty ticked at the end of the movie when they never made an appearance. I enjoyed the movie and marveled at the special effects.

The only thing happening this week of any note is the Pen Air FCU Family night at the Pensacola Ice Flyers hockey team game this Friday. In between periods, I will join the rest of the Marketing team in a broom ball game against the IT department. Hopefully no one will break anything - especially me!

Activities in the first half of January...

Sorry for the delay in posting anything new ... but truly, we have not done a whole heck of a lot around here. We have gone to a Pensaocla Ice Flyers game - all of us really enjoy those, and fortunately, so do our friends, (Xan is pictured here with my friend Brynn and her husband Greg) so we often go in large groups. Makes for a good time.




Xan loves chanting "Let's go, Ice Flyers, Let's Go!" over and over. Will like when the music comes up between plays so he can dance. Both of them love it when the teams fight. No blood bouncing on ice yet, though.

As some of you may have noticed on Facebook (Mom and Dad: If you really want blow-by-blow updates on our life, you really need to try it) I have acquired a set of golf clubs. I've gone to the driving range (I realize in this photo that my hands are wrong - that was fixed quite soon after this photo was taken) and Rodney was very impressed by how straight my shots were. I was not impressed until they stopped scooting around the ground and had some loft to them. This might be a game I could grow to enjoy.

We've stuck around the house, for the most part, this month so far. It has been miserably cold here, and now that it has warmed back up to the 60s during the day, it is raining all day and night. While this has been a fun change from the Florida heat and humidity, we are all looking forward to milder weather.

Last night we had a number of friends over for a Pampered Chef party and poker. Everyone seemed to have a great time, but Rodney and I did not get to bed until 3 a.m. Even the night owl in me was exhausted by then!

Today was a family day... Rodney and I woke up to a "meal" in a "restaurant" founded by the boys. It took up residence in the hall and featured the classic American cuisine of hamburgers, chicken, salads, soda, unsweet tea and beer. While Rodney appreciated the beer on the menu, he felt it was a bit too early in the day to imbibe.

Later, we headed to Foley so I could go to the scrap store and home decor store there to prepare for some scrap classes I am teaching in Orange Beach, AL, next weekend. Apparently Xan was kept up a little too late last night - he fell asleep in the shopping cart after about 20 minutes in the store.



Afterwards, we went to the Mellow Mushroom for pizza and our waitress apparently did not know what Canadian bacon was (ham) and returned a pizza that had strips of breakfast bacon across it. Rodney was not amused, to say the least.

Good-bye 2009, Hello 2010

Monday night, we brought the dogs in to watch TV with us, and it took us awhile to find Marble - she was making sure that if I went anywhere, she was going, too.


When I posted the photos of Xan's "wall art," I forgot the most creative one: the one to the boys' bedroom. Can you see the two people? How about the artist's signature above each one?

We had a relatively quiet New Year's Eve, joining friends at their house just around the corner from ours. Here are some photos:





We wish a happy and prosperous 2010 to all!