Halliday Family Blog

Today Zach played a pretty good basketball game.  His Ohio State Buckeye team is very good and they haven’t lost a game yet (they have tied one however).  He’s getting better by the week, but most importantly, he is having fun. He likes the friends he’s playing with.  I think he likes practices better than games because he gets to touch the ball more.  🙂

He’s getting pretty good at defense.  Offense still needs some work, but when it comes to guarding the guy he’s put on, he never lets him more than a foot away.  🙂

Today was Kirstyn’s big 14th birthday which now means she can go to church dances!  🙂  I think she was excited about that today more than anything else!  Brittany made her a VERY fattening but wonderful pie-type cake which tasted awesome!  She opened her presents and as usual, her brothers were just as excited to have her open them as she was.  🙂

Happy Big 14, Princess Bubbajo!

Today we had two realtors come over Leslie (who sold our old house and helped us get into the one we’re in now), and Chris (who helped us buy our first house).  They both made great cases to be our agent for the sale of this house, and are both outstanding realtors.  It was a very hard decision, but after much thought and discussion, we decided to go with Chris.  As you can imagine, he’s really happy!  We’re moving forward with getting the house on the market now!  We have an agent and a BUNCH of stuff to do to get ready, including carpet replacement in the basement, fix the wallboard in the basement, lots of junking and cleaning, etc.  We’re going to be consumed with this house stuff for the next “however long it takes to get the house sold!”

Wish us luck!

Today, Ben had a play date that turned out pretty funny.  He went over to his friend Lydia’s house to hang out and while there they pretending they were boyfriend and girlfriend.  We heard from Lydia’s mom that Ben made the comment that maybe he’ll consider marrying her when he gets of his mission.  🙂  What a crazy little guy we have.  There are two girls that he says he likes.  One of them is his girlfriend and the other he says he’s going to marry.  Oh how would it be if our teenage girls looked at things like that.  🙂

Today, Brittany had an awesome maybe once in a lifetime experience!  Her Seminary Teacher is a VP for the Chicago Bulls (corporate relations or something like that), and Brittany got close-up tickets for the game.  She took her friend Ian.  Angela and I drove them to the game, went out to eat, and then picked them up.  They had a GREAT time!  Before the game, they got to go down on the floor and have their pictures taken, etc.

The whole way home, she couldn’t stop talking about how much fun they had.  Their seats were pretty close to court and they could see the players really well.

Happy New Year everyone!

We hope that this year will be as good for you as we hope it will be for us!

Today was a very pivotal day in the life of the Halliday family.  We made the final decision that we are going to move.  I still have to talk to my Director and hopefully he’ll be good with it.  If so, we’ll put the house on the market in 2 weeks and look to move at the end of March or the first part of April!  Yikes!  It’s taken us about 5 years of thinking and praying about this to finally feel that now is the right time.

We told the kids today and they had mixed emotions.  They are excited (and Brittany has been the most excited in times past when we talked about it), but now Brittany has a “boyfriend” and she is bumming.  I’m sure she’ll be just fine.  The boys were REALLY exicted, Kirstyn was so-so, and Sarah was excited for us but a little mad because depending on when we move and when she gets her mission call, she may not have a farewell here!  😐

Exciting times!

Tonight we went with Carla’s and Scott’s family to the Lincoln park zoo to see animals and lights.  The kids really had a fun time!  It wasn’t near as cold as it was a couple of years ago when we went.

The lights were really beautiful.  We also saw ice carvers making their masterpieces which are always amazing to me!

When we got to the point that our faces had been frozen, thawed and then frozen again at least 10 times, we called it a night and came back home.  Carla and Scott leave tomorrow so the kids were kind-of bummed about that.  It’s been a great Christmas break so far!

Today was spent shopping and playing.  The girls went shopping and left the little ones with Scott and me.  We took them to the park by Still Middle School and they played outside until they couldn’t feel their faces.  We then took them back home and had some hot chocolate and once they were thawed out, they continued to play with their Christmas toys.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Today we had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas!  The kids were all so excited to have Christmas morning with their cousins!

… and they couldn’t wait to get downstairs to see what Santa had brought them.  It was hard enough to get the little ones to sit still for this picture!  🙂  The only one not in the picture is Ben.  He was SO tired and didn’t realize that it was Christmas Morning.  He wouldn’t get out of bed.  I wish that this would happen on all the other mornings when he is supposed to sleep in!  🙂

Everyone loved their presents and played to their heart’s content all day long.  We watched some movies, took naps, and just took it easy!

We probably ate too much junk food today as well, but that’s OK.  We enjoyed it and that’s what matters!  🙂