It has been quite an interesting week. Sadly I heard that my grandfather(Carol Bozyk's father), Joseph Borg, passed away after illness in the hospital on St Nick's Day, Dec 6th. He was 98 yrs old. He would have been 99 on his Birthday on Jan. 21st. He was cremated and will be taken down to Florida with the rest of the family in the Venice cemetery along with his wife,(my Grandma), his mother and brother in laws and sister in laws.

If longevity is inherited, you may be reading my blogs for a very long time!

And looks like my parents were able to get some of their projects completed including having a new furnace installed in time to visit with us over the holidays after all! Yeah! Looks like we will be setting up a spare bedroom in the basement so they can have some peace and quiet (and have their very own bathroom with the higher toilet!).

I have been busy cleaning the house anyway since we just hosted the dessert portion of our neighborhood progressive holiday party. The past few years I talked the neighbors into having a Progressive Party where you split the courses in several different houses-one house serves appetizers and drinks, the second has the main meal and the third serves dessert. We also swap White Elephant gifts which can be anything(something fun, nice or silly). The first year we tried this game the neighbors seemed to have a difficult time coming up with gift ideas. They got upset if they were stuck with a silly gift. Now after three years they are really getting into it and the gifts get more interesting.(I am a little concerned about what our neighbors keep in their closets!)  Like the inflatable cooked turkey which was quite the hit.

Neighbors around the corner hosted the appetizers and drinks. This was the first year I got to go! Tom however had to pick Allison up from work. She was working a church party at the rink(lots of religious music!). Dinner was down the street. The hostess is very religious, jewish and directly from Israel.  She put a few restrictions on side dishes including no pork, no shellfish as well as no dairy products. That wiped out several green bean casseroles and mashed potatoes. Usually the hostess provides one or two main dishes and the guests bring side dishes, but since there were so many limitations, the hostess decided to do all the cooking. However, we all modified our dishes to fit the restrictions and we all brought food. So we basically had enough food to feed all of Ellicott City! Hagit our hostess had built a huge buffet table in the dining room, as well as a bar in the living room and set up two large tables in both rooms. We also had people sitting on couches for dinner and the kitchen counter was buried in food. And afterwards, everyone headed over to our house for dessert. I decided I did not want to get stuck with lots of leftover cake and pie, so I put out small portions. I did actually bake something myself -a rum cake. The rest included cookies, mini cheesecakes, mini red velvet cupcakes, mini eclairs and mini cannolis. Even though we were all pretty stuffed, everyone seemed to make a good dent in the dessert trays as well as finishing off 4 pots of coffee. All in all, another successful neighborhood event.

And we all needed some fun after a stressful week with  our next door neighbors  house being robbed.  Apparently the thief/ves tried a house around the corner, but the alarm went off. They cut through the woods and broke into the back of our neighbor's house and ransacked the place. They even found a safe and broke into it and stole the handgun inside. Just like the movies, they loaded up pillow cases and walked out the front door. We heard during the dinner party that a fingerprint was found and a person identified from Baltimore City. We will have to follow the newspaper and see if they catch anyone. They did pull over a pickup truck cruising the neighborhood and someone was arrested but not necessarily the same thief.  We keep up to date through emails in the neighborhood. Unfortunately the kids are a bit nervous now. The robbery took place at 11 am. It's bad enough we have had our cars broken in to, but it is a whole nother story when they break into the houses.

Other fun news, Allison and I went to the dentist for a cleaning and the dentist decided Allison could use braces again on her bottom teeth. I came away with a scheduled root canal. The tooth I had refilled has been hurting worse and looks like a root canal is in my future(a fun way to spend the holiday week!).

And the 6th grade Mom's Ornament Exchange party scheduled for Thursday night was cancelled due to lack of participation. Out of 64 moms, only 6 signed up! Guess everyone is busy.

I had plenty of other activities to keep me busy though. Allison and I had a follow up meeting(with pizza) on Monday night for the Girl Scout convention. Allison will be providing a power point presentation at the Board Meeting this spring. On Tuesday Tom got Scott to his boy scout meeting and Friday was gymnastics. Scott has been running a tight schedule as his Lego Team is trying to wrap up their project for a January tournament. Tom was brought in to the project and helped build a platform on Friday after school, right after he met with the Science teacher to plan next year's Science Fair. Tom is not so sure the Lego Team will be ready in time. They have been meeting extra before and after school, but they won't be working on it during break, and the tournament is just a week after they go back to school.Scott is in charge of the programming, and the rest of the team has not finished building their robot.

On SAturday Tom and Scott spent the whole day with the boy scouts at the Air and Space museum near Dulles airport by DC. The boys needed to visit a museum as part of their requirements for rank. Tom was a chaperone. We have only been out to the museum when it first opened. Tom was impressed with how much more they added. Scott enjoyed the flight simulator the most. You actually got to control this one.

I was back home with Allison, dropping her off at work. But first I took her early in the morning for a practice SAT exam. She has taken the PSATs but it does not include the whole test. They have added an essay portion to the SAT since Tom and I last took it. This was a chance to try the whole test and get feedback on how she does. She will be taking the test for real in the spring. She thought the math was fine, along  with the essay, but had a bit more trouble on the english. I'm glad she tried it.  However, we did miss the grand opening of our new library. We have been waiting for a new library since we moved here 15 yrs ago. It looks like it is a wonderful addition to Ellicott City.

I also stopped into Allison's school last week for a presentation on the internship program. Allison was accepted into the program this year, but really could not fit all the requirements into her very packed schedule. She was to intern with our Kindergarten teacher at Scott's school as part of the teaching program and as a class. (The same teacher Allison had in Kindergarten). She will also have a research project to complete. Our biggest drawback was that she could not drive and her time is limited between school and field hockey. She could not even get to the school long enough to complete her hours and then back to practice. So the instructor said she is welcome to complete the internship next year-she doesn't even have to apply again.  And hopefully next year she will be driving by herself!

OK. I have to go clean something or mail something or bake something or wrap something. Kathleen