Joyeux Noël des LeBlancs

We've had a very nice past three days!

On Christmas Eve we pretty much took it easy around the house for most of the morning and early afternoon and then Brian and I got serious and baked a batch of M&M Christmas cookies and some butterscotch brownies. Afterward, we headed over to Brian's parents' house for some yummy spaghetti and family time before midnight Mass. We were done with Mass at about 1:20 a.m. Christmas morning and then we went back to Chez Parental LeBlancs for a Christmas morning drink (we're Catholics--what can we say?) and then made it back to our house around 3 a.m.

Needless to say, none of us were really feeling a crack-of-dawn Christmas morning festivity, so Brian and I got up around 9 a.m. and let Gatsby open his Christmas present before we headed over to Brian's parents' house at 11:15 a.m. Gatsby got a *super stinky* cow hoof chew toy to munch on while we were away on Christmas and he was so very cute opening it. We wrapped it pretty loosely in pretty Christmas paper and it took him about 45 seconds to get the paper off. (We got a video of it and a few pictures of him "helping" us make our Christmas cookies that I will put a little bit later.) We then spent the rest of the day with Brian's parents, brother, and grandma. We had a bomb-diggity-dot-com prime rib for dinner and then concluded the evening with a rousing game of Life, where, if you're wondering, your intrepid blogger was victorious with no children and no life or fire insurance (Go me!).

Today we basically did nothing. Brian slept most of the day and I watched 9 DVR'd episodes of 17 Kids and Counting on TLC about the Duggar family. It was all great fun!

Tomorrow we're off on an adventure to visit my parents, Callie, and Clay in Ocean. It will be interesting to see how Gatsby does on the 2.5 hour car trip and stay in a different place!

Gatsby really, really likes Christmas cookies

Especially doggie Christmas cookies. In fact, I think if we leave any out for Santa, Gatsby will probably eat them before the jolly ol'guy comes down our nonexistant chimney.

I took this today when I saw him eyeing up the cookie container on the counter.

All afternoon he kept getting my attention and then running to the counter with the cookies and doing the best doggie sit ever so that I would be so overwhelmed with his awesomeness that I would reward him lavishly with doggie cookies. It's pretty hilarious.

I also uploaded a few pictures that we've taken of him in the past few weeks:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/Gatsby

Sick child only wants cards for Christmas

So, as I was watching WRAL's Noon News today, they did a story on a 7-year-old boy in Lumberton who has an incurable form of cancer. He told his grandmother that he wanted Christmas cards through the mail, so if you have some extra Christmas cards laying around, consider sending him one.

A brief story and Damien's address is available online:

http://www.robesonian.com/articles/2008/12/19/robesonian/news/2boy%20dec20.txt

Christmas Memories

This post is dedicated to my family, who are probably the only people who will laugh at some of these.

I was thinking today about how great Christmas is and how much fun it is to spend time with family and all the different traditions and memories:

• When Callie was probably 5 or 6, she got this totally awesome yo-yo from Santa that would light up red and yellow when it was yo-ing. Well, neither Callie and I knew the proper wrist action for the yo-yo, so my dad was nominated for the inaugural yo. He was on his knees and didn't really judge distance really well, so as soon as he let go of the yo-yo, it glided down with a beautiful, gracefulness; hit the carpet, and busted into three pieces and the batteries went flying across the room. What makes this even better is that we have it captured on VHS.
• As a child, my best Christmas ever was in 1986--the one right before Callie was born. Santa found my house and stayed for a while dropping off a million presents. I can remember getting a Barbie Corvette, a Barbie Hawaiian Adventure landscape (complete with jetskis and waterskis), a Barbie poolside and cabana, a Cabbage Patch doll, a doctor's set, a Madame Alexander bride, and quite a few other things. It was pretty sweet.
• The other funny things about that Christmas was that it coined two very cute things that I did and captured them on video. The first thing was when I opened up the Madame Alexander bride, I exclaimed, "SHE'S GETTIN MAEEHHREEEEEEEEEEED!" [married] in, like, the best southern accent ever. And then when I got the doctor's kit, I pulled out the stethoscope, walked over to my mom (who was 7 months pregnant with baby Callie), put the stethoscope up to her tummy and said, "Your baby's doin juuuuuuuuust fine." [I'm pretty positive I was the cutest child ever.]
• Watching our Lhasa-Apso, Snuffie, go hogwild crazy over his Christmas morning rawhide and then plowing through all the wrapping and tissue paper.
• Going to the family service at Mt. Olive in the early evening, coming home and eating mom's mini-ham sandwiches and chili, opening a Christmas gift (specifically selected by momma), and then going back to church at 10:30 p.m. for the candlelight service. I can also remember my papaw always helping me out of my coat once we got into the dark sanctuary with the pretty Christmas music playing.
• The sheer chaos that is opening gifts at my nanny's house Christmas night, which usually included about 20 people and at one point spanned 4 Bolick generations.
• Going boating in Seven Lakes at my granddaddy's house in December (IT WAS FREEZING!)
• When I was in high school, leaving my nanny's and heading over to Shannon's to meet up with all my friends to hit up the movie theatre.
• Callie and I fighting for on-air time on my dad's video camera, pushing each other out of the way, singing Christmas carols to the camera, and then the one shot of Callie holding the mechanical Rudolph on her head, glaring at the camera, and saying, "LAURA, LAURA, LAURA!! LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
• My nanny's incredible home cooking.
• Our tradition of decorating the Christmas tree as a family. My mom always cooked awesome appetizers--I can especially remember the shrimp cocktails. I also loved getting all those awesome Hallmark ornaments!!
• Santa Land presents at Clyde Campbell
• One specific Christmas, when Callie was still in her crib, and we were decorating the tree, gathering as a family to say the blessing. Callie was standing in her crib and mom and I were each holding one of her hands. As soon as the blessing was over, we both said Amen, and let go of Callie, who promptly fell backwards in her crib.
• "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, Can you see me? Can you see me, daddy? Am I on the camera? Daddy? Daddy? Am I there? Daddy? Daddy? DADDY???????"
• Mom and dad having to wake US up on Christmas morning because we always slept late.
• Christmas morning casseroles and, eventually, mimosas.
• Me saying, "Angel make noise" to the music-box-like-angel that my mom put in my bedroom at Fort Bragg.
• Harry Connick, Jr., Amy Grant, and Mariah Carey on the Sharp 5-disc CD changer.

I'm sure there are so many more, but those are some of the ones that I just thought of, off the top of my head...

Vacation!

Brian will probably kill me when he reads this because he has to work today and tomorrow. :-(

Gatsby and I have had a fantastic and relaxing first day of Christmas vacation. We were up pretty early because Gatsby likes to eat his breakfast at the same time everyday. Per usual, he had the same mix of chicken, rice, liver, wheat, and some other stuff. Afterward, we did our first chore of the day and watered the Christmas tree. (I watered and Gatsby helped drink the water as I poured.)

We then made an executive decision that we'd done too much work for the day, so he decided to play with his toys while I did the crossword puzzle and watched my DVR copy of Private Practice. Gatsby helped me with some of the hard crossword puzzle clues; with one human and one doggie brain, we got the puzzle finished.

Gatsby continued to play while I watched Rachael Ray, The View, and the noon news. I had a salad for lunch and lil G had liver treats.

We've spent the afternoon watching soap operas and Gatsby has been taking a nap in front of the fireplace.

I LOVE BEING ON VACATION and having a husband with a normal working schedule where he can actually take vacation too!

The rest of our holidays look like the following:

Monday, 12/22 - Laura vacation and Brian working
Tuesday, 12/23 - Laura vacation and Brian working
Wednesday, 12/24 - Laura vacation and Brian holiday
Thursday, 12/25 - Laura and Brian holiday
Friday, 12/26 - Laura holiday and Brian vacation
---
Monday, 12/29 - Laura and Brian vacation
Tuesday, 12/30 - Laura and Brian vacation
Wednesday, 12/31 - Laura working from home and Brian working
Thursday, 1/1 - Laura and Brian holiday
Friday, 1/2 - Laura vacation and Brian working

Outback, Southern Pines, Nutcracker, and FOOTBALL

This weekend, we celebrated Christmas with my dad's side of the family. On Saturday night, mom, dad, and Callie came into Knightdale and stayed with us for the night. We went to Outback for dinner with my grandmother and then went back to her apartment for a little while. We had a very nice meal. I love, love, love Outback's blue cheese chopped salad with pecans and the ahi tuna appetizer (soooo yummy!). I was also able to convince my mom to trade one of my tuna pieces for one of her coconut shrimps (Also yummy...my family tells me that I often have entree envy, but I don't think this counts because we both had appetizers!).

Sunday morning, we were up and at'em pretty early and went to Southern Pines to visit my granddaddy and step-grandmother. We also met up with my aunt and her family and my uncle. We had a yummy homecooked lunch and then got to have some quality family time while we exchanged gifts.

My dad took some good pictures in Southern Pines, so I added them to our Christmas 2008 Picasa directory:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/Christmas2008

Unfortunately, Brian and I had to leave early to come back to Raleigh.

Fortunately, it was because we had free tickets to the Carolina Ballet's Nutcracker. The show was totally awesome...I'd never actually seen it before and I'd never read the story, so I really enjoyed it. It's absolutely amazing how talented those dancers are. (Plus, it's always a good thing when the N.C. Symphony is playing!) Brian and I decided that it probably wouldn't be an annual thing for us, but we definitely want to see it again and maybe even a few other ballets during the year. We also need to hit up some symphony shows and I want to see a few plays in 2009. I just think it's so incredible how talented performing artists are.

So...long story short...if you're looking for a good show, we highly recommend the ballet.

Afterward, we hit up El Señor in Knightdale for some yummy Mexican food and then we've spent the evening chilling on the couch watching the Panthers/Giants game.

Gatsby, in turn, has spent the evening playing fetch and burying his rawhide bone in as many places as possible.

MORE NEIGHBORS!!!

We got some more neighbors this week. People moved into the house at the end of the street, which was the house built for the Parade of Homes.

Here's the updated graphic:


Legend
yellow: Laura, Brian, and Gatsby
fuschia: house under construction
neon green: lot sold, but no house built yet
red-orange: occupied
light blue: completely empty lot
dark blue: built, but not yet occupied

Triangle Business Journal Article

The other day I was thinking about the Triangle Business Journal article that featured Brian and (sorta) me and it dawned on me that I never put up a full copy of the article.

So I scanned it in tonight and since the page was a weird size, I had to use my nonexistant PhotoChop skills to splice together the two scanned images.

And then I went to find the original post that I made on the article for some background (http://our5percent.blogspot.com/2008/08/triangle-business-journal.html). And then, of course, I realized that, evidently, TBJ releases their full articles on the Web after they've been out for a while.

So, you can either read the badly spliced PDF at http://www.gribblenation.com/personal/laura/TBJ_article.PDF.

Or, you can read the full article online at http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2008/08/11/focus8.html.

New Neighbors!!

We got new neighbors on Tuesday! They haven't moved everything in yet, but they do have a little Christmas tree in their empty living room. It also looks like the in-progress house on our side of the street is very close to being ready for move in because they laid the sod on Tuesday.

Updated Map

Legend
yellow: Laura, Brian, and Gatsby
fuschia: house under construction
neon green: lot sold, but no house built yet
red-orange: occupied
light blue: completely empty lot
dark blue: built, but not yet occupied

My company! (I mean, "not-for-profit organization")

I love to read business stories and I was reading one tonight about this Bernard Madoff guy and the firm that "audits" his books. I say "audit" because evidently that firm has been telling the Institute that it doesn't do audits. So, anyway, it's a really short article, but it's pretty interesting because it provides a really basic discussion of what my people do. I've even worked pretty closely in the past with the Peer Review Program that the article mentions.

By the way, if you're curious, I'm one of the ones that either edits the auditing (and attest, and peer review, and tax, and ethics, and accounting and review...) standards [among other professional publications] that we promulgate or I'm one of the ones who makes sure that they end up in print for everyone to read. Kinda cool, huh?


Madoff's auditor... doesn't audit?
The three-person firm that apparently certified Madoff's books has been telling a key accounting industry group for years that it doesn't conduct audits.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/17/news/companies/madoff.auditor.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008121720

25 Reasons Why We Love Living in a House

1. Curbside garbage pickup
2. Two-car garage
3. A mailbox at the end of the driveway
4. No rent checks
5. Curbside garbage pickup
6. No pet deposits
7. No complaining neighbors that live downstairs
8. Bird feeders are allowed
9. No loud music bumping TLC's "No Scrubs" at 2 a.m.
10. Curbside garbage pickup
11. Getting to see all the pretty Christmas lights throughout the neighborhood
12. Having a nonhyphenated address (i.e., 6801-204 Highline Street)
13. Not having to carry groceries and Christmas presents up a flight of stairs
14. Not having to carry a Christmas tree up a hill AND then up a flight of stairs
15. Curbside garbage pickup
16. A kitchen with counter space
17. A refrigerator with an ice maker
18. Never having to buy stove drip pans again
19. Packages are actually left at door, rather than at the leasing office or post office
20. Curbside garbage pickup.
21. Trick-or-treaters aren't 15 years old ("Gimme yo' candy.")
22. No bright parking lot lights shining in our bedroom at night
23. Good insulation for low utility bills
24. A garbage disposal that doesn't sound like a Boeing 777
25. Curbside garbage pickup

Did I mention that we like having curbside garbage pickup? :-) Perhaps the greatest modern convenience ever.

Our Street

So, I had some down time this afternoon and I thought y'all might be interested to see how our street has filled out in the past six months.

Not really interested? That's fine...I also just wanted to play around in Photoshop :-)

So, here's the plot layout of our street:

Legend

yellow: Laura, Brian, and Gatsby

fuschia: house under construction

neon green: lot sold, but no house built yet

red-orange: occupied

light blue: completely empty lot

dark blue: built, but not yet occupied

The two dark blue lots on our side of the street have been sold, but no one has moved in yet.

Radon

As I've been working on a redesign of the blog, I've also been flipping through some of our old posts from May and June. (It is soooo much fun to go back and read through them all and remember everything that has happened). As I was reading, I came across the post that I made right after we got the results of our radon test (http://our5percent.blogspot.com/2008/05/21-pcil.html).

Recently, two of the houses on our street have sold (however, I never truly believe it until I see people with their moving truck), but we've noticed that both of those houses must have elevated radon levels because they have the radon-remover-boxes on the sides of their houses (they're very noticeable because they basically have a box at street level and then a square pipe that goes up the side of the house to the roof to release the radon). They're extremely unsightly and quite loud.

So, of course, we were pretty pleased that our house tested low for radon, but I think it may have tested low because of the time of the year. Evidently, radon levels are usually higher in the winter months. So we're probably breathing evil, Satan radon right now, but at least we don't have an ugly box on the side of our house :-)

Note to all: sell your house in the summer!

New Blog Layout

Today was a pretty lazy day around our house, so I took the evening to redesign the layout of the blog. I was aiming for something simple and streamlined, so I hope that I accomplished that much. :-) If you like it, let me know. If you hate it, let Brian know.

I also used the collage feature in Picasa to create the new header image. (As an aside, Picasa is like the best picture collector software program ever.) I thought y'all might be interested to know where all the pictures in the collage were taken.

So, from top->bottom; left->right:

In a golf cart at Put-in-Bay in Ohio (Oct. 2003)
Atop Mount Royal in Montréal (Feb. 2006)
SOLD sign for our house (Jan. 2008)
Appalachian football game (Nov. 2006)
Gatsby LeBlanc (Oct. 2008)
Before a Panthers game at BofA Stadium (Nov. 2004)
Bryson City/Great Smoky Mountains for our 1st anniversary (May 2007)
My master's graduation (May 2006)
Emergency drill on our honeymoon cruise (June 2006)
With the Stanley Cup (July 2006)
Niagara Falls (Mar. 2003)
Ice Skaing on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa (Mar. 2003)

A few things I noticed as I was putting these into the collage:

• I'm always on Brian's right in pictures, unless there is a huge hunk of metal in the form of a cup named Stanley between us or there are millions of gallons of water free falling behind us.
• We take a lot of pictures in places where it's cold.
• Brian and I have been together for a very long time.*
• I like my hair better short.
• Gatsby is really cute.

* Brian and I just realized that we've "been an item" for more than 6.5 years; we've been married for more than 2.5 years; and we've lived in our house for more than 6 months!

Life goes by way too fast!

Photos de Noël

Today around sunset, Gatsby and I treked around to take some pictures of our house with all the Christmas decorations. They're up in our Picasa directory:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/Christmas2008

Christmas Poem

My dad sent this to me a few weeks ago and then I saw it on Robbie and Sara's blog, so I wanted to post it here because I think it's always important to remember those who fight for our freedom.

---

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

'What are you doing?' I asked without fear,
'Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!'
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts.

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said 'Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night.'
'It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,'
Then he sighed, 'That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers.'
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue ... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother.
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.'

'So go back inside,' he said, 'harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right.'
'But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
'Give you money,' I asked, 'or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son.'

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
'Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.'

TIS THE SEASON!!!

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE CHRISTMAS!

Seriously (I'm the one person listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween).

Brian and I got most of the Christmas decorations out the Sunday after Thanksgiving and then we got our tree yesterday.

I am very, very traditional when it comes to Christmas decorations. I'm a firm believer in a white light façade and I've spent the first 2.5 years of our marriage convincing Brian of the same. :-) (And now he agrees with me!)

I'm OK with multicolored lights on other peoples' houses--just not ours :-)

So we have very lovely candles in our 20 windows (on an 8 hour timer from 3:30-11:30 p.m.) and a very lovely fake, prelit, white-light Christmas tree in our front window (in the study). We also have garland on our three front "square" columns. We bought some icicle lights, but they seem like a giant pain to put up, so those may have to wait until next year after we can research the situation a bit! :-)

Inside our front hall we have our nativity scene and my Christmas village (http://www.department56.com/content.aspx?cid=VLXC&ms=PRD&msi=58994&smenu=Products).

In our "great room" [lame name], we have our real tree and it's awesome this year. (I wasn't feeling well yesterday, so Brian went to get it by himself and he did a fantastic job.)

(To digress for a brief moment, it is wayyyyy easier to bring in a Christmas tree into our house with a flat driveway than to bring it into our 2nd floor apartment that sits on a hill.)

So, last night we decorated the tree (and by "we" I mean "me" for 45 minutes and "Brian" for 5 minutes). Because we're super compromisers, we have multicolored lights on our tree and I have to say that it looks quite pretty.

I'll try to get some pictures up later this week, but I'm not sure how the house pictures will come out because I'll need to take them at dusk.

Yay Christmas! (Oh yeah, and we have tickets to the Nutcracker and we're going to go to the Raleigh Boychoir's Carols of Christmas.)

BTW, Gatsby hasn't paid too much attention to the tree except that he doesn't like it much when his ball rolls behind it and he thought it was fun to drink the water when I was pouring it into the tree stand. He also likes the tree skirts on both trees, but he knows that it doesn't make us happy if he plays with them, so he's been leaving them alone lately.

He kinda looked at us like we were crazy as we were bringing in the "dead tree" yesterday.

Our horse finally caught up with the cart.

Yes.

Saturday was a very sad day, as Appalachian was defeated by Richmond in a quarterfinal playoff game. So...their season is done.

I would be lying if I said that it doesn't suck. It definitely hurts. It sucks because the games are just so much fun to go to, it gives us something exciting to look forward to each weekend, and it's an awesome chance to spend time with my family. I mean, seriously, how many 26 year olds get to see their parents in Ocean, sis in Wilmington, and future brother-in-law in Ocean (at least) every other weekend from August to December?? It's pretty awesome that we all get to spend so much time together.

We all knew that it would end sometime, but that doesn't make it any easier; however, the fact that we got four incredible seasons of football is pretty awesome. How lucky are we as fans to see THREE STRAIGHT Division I National Championships and FOUR STRAIGHT Southern Conference titles AND a win over No. 5 Michigan IN Ann Arbor?

In a way, it's probably good because it will make the team want it more next year and they'll be set for greatness. The players that were really young this year will have a lot more experience. It will be Armanti's senior season and they will be out looking for revenge. I am VERY excited for next season and it will be very cool to start it off at ECU. It should be an electrifying atmosphere! They'll be ready and we'll be ready. (Interestingly, App doesn't play one single game outside of the Carolinas next year!)

So, we turn toward Labor Day Weekend 2009 and we spend the "off season" cheering on the Panthers and watching hockey!

Anyone want 5 seats to the National Championship game in Chattanooga on Dec. 19? :-)