For those of you visiting your children during the year, particularly Christmas, below is the visitation schedule for parents traveling over 90 miles per Ohio law (Rule 27).

Liberal parenting time arrangements are encouraged, as contact with both parents is important to the children. Specific items in the Journal Entry take precedence over this schedule. Changes or modifications can be made by the Court if need for such is shown. This schedule does not affect support payments.

Activities you engage in with your children, skills you teach them, or friends you help them make will make their time with you more rewarding. Additionally, regardless of how much time each parent spends with the children, there are many opportunities to be involved in their lives, such as participation and attendance at their school, sporting and extracurricular activities.

PARENTING TIME BETWEEN THE CHILDREN AND THE NON-RESIDENTIAL PARENT SHALL TAKE PLACE AT SUCH TIMES AND PLACES AS THE PARTIES MAY AGREE, BUT WILL NOT BE LESS THAN:

1. Pre-School Age: Unless otherwise agreed, pre-School age children shall follow the same schedule as school age children in the school district where they live, whether or not a school age child resides in the family. Frequent contact with both parents is recommended for very young children.

2. Winter Break: Winter Break will be divided in half and alternated annually, by half, between the parents.

3. Spring Break: The non-residential parent shall be entitled to the entire school vacation (the day school is out to the day before school recommences) in odd-numbered years.

4. Summer: Each parent shall be entitled to one half of the school summer vacation. Summer school necessary for the child(ren) to pass to the next grade must be attended. The residential parent shall notify the non-residential parent by March 15 of when the summer vacation begins and ends. The non-residential parent must notify the residential parent as to their intentions by April 15.

a. If the parties cannot agree which half of the summer they prefer, in the even-numbered years, the first half of the summer shall be spent at the home of the non-residential parent, and in the odd-numbered years, the second half.

b. A general itinerary should be provided either parent if more than 2 days will be spent away from either home when the children are in that parent's care.

5. Vacations: Each parent may arrange an uninterrupted vacation of not more than two weeks with the children. If this includes a trip away from home a general itinerary of the vacation shall be provided for the other parent, including dates, locations, addresses, and telephone numbers.

6. Additional Parenting time:

a. Weekend: A once-a-month, weekend visit to the non‑residential parent's home shall be permitted if the child's traveling time does not exceed THREE AND ONE HALF HOURS, one way. The residential parent must be notified at least one week in advance. THE NONRESIDENTIAL PARENT SHALL PROVIDE THE TRANSPORTATION FOR WEEKEND PARENTING TIME.

b. Father's Day and Mother's Day should always be spent with the appropriate parent.

c. The non‑residential parent shall notify the residential parent as least two days in advance of any time the non‑residential parent will be in the area and wants parenting time. Absent extraordinary circumstances, this parenting time shall occur.

d. The residential parent shall notify the non‑residential parent at least two days in advance when the residential parent and child(ren) will be in the area of the non‑residential parent, and parenting time must be allowed.

7. Telephone Access:

a. Children can call either parent as often as they wish, at reasonable times, so long as the call is collect if it is a long distance call.

b. In addition, the non-possessory parent shall be entitled to telephone communication with the children not less than three times per week for not less than 15 minutes per call.

c. Possessory parent shall not interfere with or stop telephone communication.

8. Transportation: Responsibility for transportation costs should be decided in advance and a plan written into an Order of the Court. The costs of transportation, in the appropriate case, may be a basis for deviation from the child support schedule. Parties shall also decide and provide in the plan where the child(ren) shall be picked up and dropped off.

9. Moving: Upon either parent learning or determining, whichever first occurs, that he/she will be moving, he/she will immediately notify the other parent and provide the other parent with the moving date, new residence address and telephone number, and such other pertinent information necessary to effectuate a smooth move for the children. The parents shall attempt, in good faith, to renegotiate an appropriate and beneficial new parenting time schedule.

10. Current Address and Telephone Number: Except as provided in the court order, each parent shall keep the other informed of his/her current address and telephone number at all times.

Emergency Contact: Both parents shall at all times, regardless of whether the children are with him/her, provide the other parent with a telephone number for contact in the event of an emergency.

11. Car Seat: For any and all children required by law to ride in a car seat, the parents shall transfer the car seat with the child as parenting time exchanges occur.

12. Clothing: The parents shall cooperate in the exchange of the children's clothing prior to and following parenting time.

The song below is what I named my little girl after. She is a beacon of light in this world. She will be graduating from high school this year and attending college at Taylor University.

Like the song says "she always gives without taking". God is always there for you, if noone else seems to be, sweetie. I cherish all the wonderful moments at Christmas!

I love you with all my heart and thank God for you. I've listed the lyrics to "Mandy" below:

"Mandy" (by Barry Manilow)

I remember all my life
Rainin' down as cold as ice
Shadows of a man
A face through a window
Cryin' in the night
The night goes into

Mornin', just another day
Happy people pass my way
Lookin' in their eyes
I see a memory
I never realized
How happy you made me, oh Mandy

[Chorus]

Well you came and you gave without takin'
But I sent you away, oh Mandy
Well, you kissed me and stopped me from shakin'
And I need you today, oh Mandy

Standin' on the edge of time
Walked away when love was mine
Caught up in a world of uphill climbin'
The tears are in my mind
And nothing is rhymin', oh Mandy

[Chorus]

Yesterday's a dream
I face the mornin'
Cryin' on a breeze
The pain is callin', oh Mandy

[Chorus]

You came and you gave without takin'
But I sent you away, oh Mandy
You kissed me and stopped me from shakin'
And I need you

Do you need more time to celebrate the New Year? Get ready for a minute with 61 seconds. Scientists are delaying the start of 2006 by the first "leap second" in seven years, a timing tweak meant to make up for changes in the Earth's rotation.

The adjustment will be carried out by sticking an extra second into atomic clocks worldwide at the stroke of midnight. Enjoy New Year's Eve a second longer. You can toot your horn an extra second this year.

Coordinated Universal Time coincides with winter time in London. On the U.S. East Coast, the extra second occurs just before 7 p.m. on New Year's Eve. Atomic clocks at that moment will read 23:59:60 before rolling over to all zeros.

Ever feel like punching someone in the nose? It paid off for a surfer in Oregon this Christmas Season, when he tangled with a Great White Shark in a favorite surfing spot today.

It appears that watching the Discovery Channel saved his life. He remembered the fact that sharks have very sensitive noses and punched the Great White in the nose until he let him go.

I guess the moral to this story is, if you have someone you can't get off your back, you might want to try punching them in the nose. Who knows what good it might do them!

IT'S COMING: THE GREATEST DEPRESSION EVER!

Renowned Swiss Economist M.T. Taanke -- who first predicted the current oil crisis -- (Weekly World News, August 22, 2005), has just made public a Decisive International Restructured Economy Report which warns categorically of a worldwide depression that means the end of civilization as we now know it!

The D.I.R.E. Report was written by Taanke in conjunction with leading economists and sociologists, geophysical scientists and statisticians.

"In the June 6, 2005 edition, your newspaper predicted the coming of the 2nd Great Depression," Taanke told Weekly World News in an exclusive interview. "You were right to warn the world, and alone in your courage. However, the reality of the disaster will be worse than you imagined.

"Due to super-storms, ongoing wars, escalating oil prices and rampant global warning, it isn't just the world economy that will collapse," the economist said. "Civilization itself will fall!"

Taanke detailed his timetable for the coming doom.

"When hurricanes devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, oil and gas prices skyrocketed around the world," he said. "Nations tapped into their strategic oil reserves thinking they could replenish them this year and next. They were wrong! It is a closely guarded secret in Washington, London and Tokyo, but due to global warming, water from the melting polar ice caps has flooded more than 70 percent of the world's deep petroleum wells. It will be five or six years before those megatons of water can be drained. We will be dry long before then.

"Though we had the technology, we did not have the foresight to develop alternate energy sources," he said. "As a result, cars, planes and fuel-based industry will cease to function. With no power, towns and villages, nations and states will be cut off. Computers won't work and economies will evaporate. The world will return to medieval status -- but only for a short while. Things will quickly get worse."

D.I.R.E. Report coauthor and futurologist professor Barnard Jaffe of Gortuu University in Cinderville, Ohio, predicts breadlines so long that people will starve before they reach the food.

"Even when they get to the shops and markets, what will they use to pay?" he asked. "Currency will be worthless. Clean water and bread will become the coin of the realm.

"At the same time, modern-day pirates will attempt to seize reservoirs and whatever food remains," he predicted. "There will be no electricity and all communication will go dark. Think New Orleans writ very, very large.

"Uncontrollable fires will rage as civilized humans are reduced to prehistoric predators. Unable to contain the madness, governments will collapse.

"Rampant disease, much worse than any bird flu, will set off major plagues that will decimate the world's population by more than 50 percent," Jaffe somberly remarked.

"We are past the point of no return," Taanke concluded, shaking a head that was prematurely bald with worry. "World leaders have all adopted a 'circle-the-wagons' mentality in order to blame someone other than themselves. But it won't matter who is to blame -- and it certainly won't help us in any case."

When asked to specify a date when everything will come apart, Taanke sighed.

"My calculations show that the Sixth of June, next year -- 6/6/06 -- will be the beginning of D-Day for all of humanity."

A Bush administration insider, 'Dick C.,' called the D.I.R.E. Report, "Irresponsible, the ranting of a tightly wound Swiss cuckoo."

Taanke responded angrily, "I suggest everyone stock up on canned goods, bottled water, firearms and lots of ammo. And when that runs out, make sure you have large wooden clubs with spikes.