Get the kiddos ready! Santa has been busy in one of our upstairs bedrooms - preparing for his big night. If there are enough good kiddos who come by, he might even be able to make it out for a few visits before heading off to deliver presents on Dec. 24th.
This is our third year of running a computer controlled light show and we’ve nearly doubled the size of the show for 2008. This year our display will include over 40,000 lights, 40 strobe lights, a few virtual snow machines, a virtual Santa Claus, red and green flood backdrops, a ‘mini-mega tree’, video synchronization, and a couple of very cool LED scanners. Oh yeah, and don’t forget that Santa will make live appearances as we get closer to the big day!
Last year was the first time we tried running two houses synchronized together and this year… we have three! With 80 channels of animation and a couple hundred feet of cat5 - this will be fantastic!
The show is synchronized to a variety of unique holiday tunes and can be heard by tuning your car stereo to 107.3 FM.
This is the spot that CBS 11 (hi Stewart!) ran on November 28th - opening night for our 2008 season. It rained the morning of so most of the lights didn’t even work, but it still came out nice.
Well, it’s almost time! Today marks the beginning of the 24 hours of the year that my family and I look forward to more than any other. There are so many reasons to celebrate. From the birth of Christ at the center of it all - to remembering and sharing the gratitude we have for the glory given to us through God in our own lives - to the thankfulness for health, well being and the ability to spend quality time with our family’s - this is my favorite 24 hours of the year.
From the Shucks, the Vaders and the McKims, we hope your holiday dreams have come true. We hope that you are blessed, healthy, happy and enjoying not only this season, but all of the days of the year. We wish you and yours the merriest of merry Christmas’ and the most propsperous of all new years!
As many of you may already know, I have been hospitalized since last week with a mysterious illness that has been dragging on for several weeks. I returned home last night after 5 days of playing the role of lab rat to a handful of specialists including an infectious disease doctor, oncologist, surgeon, pathologist, general practitioner, hemotologist and the usual array of anethseziologists (sp?), radiologists, etc.
I spent saturday night in ICU. Started mondya morning being told I would be starting Chemo next week and ended Tuesday with the Oncologist telling me there, in fact, is no cancer in my blood - and the infectious disease specialist telling me I didn’t have Lymphoma, rather a very unique and rare form of… Mono.
So, we’re still waiting for the FINAL results. I spent Saturday night and Sunday in ICU. It’s been an emotional roller coaster. And We really still don’t have a 100% answer, but it looks more like a weird form of Mono at this point. I still feel miserable and have a handful of drugs to take. My spleen is twice it’s normal size and all of the incisions from the biopsy and other testing have made me very sore - so it’s difficult to get around.
I have my first follow up and should have final results from the biopsy sometime next week.
In the end, I am blessed to be able to spend the holiday with my family. I am blessed to have the family, friends and neighbors that I have. I want to offer my sincerest gratitude to all of our great neighbors here in Providence Village. I always knew we had it good here, but it’s times like these that the absolute beauty of true community shines through in all it’s glory. THANK YOU TO YOU ALL! You will never know how much your support has meant to us over the past couple of weeks and as we continue to sort through my health issues.
Just a quick note to let everyone know that the site was down for about an hour this morning while we upgraded to WordPress 2.7 and made sone adjustments to the sites plugins. Things should move a little quicker for our users now.
Well, unfortunately the weather plays a large role in our ability to run the show. All this fog and generally soggy air has seeped into everything out there. This is the first time in three years that all of my GFCI’s are tripping. We can’t even run part of the show tonight.
I sure it hope it all dries out before tomorrow night since Santa is supposed to come visit us tomorrow. But please be aware that if the show doesn’t run, Santa won’t be making an appearance either.
Don’t forget to bring the little ones out this friday night and then again on Sunday and Monday night. Santa will be taking a break from his preparations to visit with as many kiddos as possible. Feel free to bring your cameras!
Santa will be available from about 7pm until 8pm or until all the kiddos have had a chance to chat!
So, I don’t have a visual for you, but last night our neighbors across the street had a little holiday get together. We went over and most of us were hanging out on their front porch watching the lights go nuts and having a drink or 3.
Suddenly, the Shuck’s, McKim’s and I noticed that the line of cars waiting to see out display went all the down to the lake near our model homes and beyond. That’s probably about 1/4-1/2 a mile. And - there were cars creating a very problematic ‘third lane’ right down the middle of the road between cars parked along both sides of the street in each direction.
2 thoughts went through our heads:
Cool! Look what we did!
Dear God please don’t let anyone do anything stupid!
It was one of the coolest things to witness. Like the producer of a broadway show who knows his has a hit. Or a rock star that sells out his first big arena show. Thrilling.
Most importantly, our donation bin for the HOPE bank was overflowing!
We are an official drop point for the Hilltop Church Hope Bank in Aubrey, Texas. The Hope Bank provides food and clothing for those in need during times of hardship or crisis. If you enjoy our display, please consider donating non-perishable food items that will help make some local family holidays a little brighter. Donations can be placed in the red drop box near the street in front of the display.
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