Home For Christmas!!

Jason, Dacia and Janae had to work Tues. night so we didn't leave for KS until Christmas Eve morning. We usually open presents Christmas Eve and then Christmas day have our Christmas dinner and open stocking stuffers, but Val & Bill and Arthur & Jessica weren't going to be there until Fri. so we decided this year we'd go ahead and have our Christmas dinner for those who were going to be there and then have our family (David & I's) Christmas on Christmas day after Colin & Faith got there sometime in the afternoon.




Dad carved the turkey and fixed the platter up so neat looking.

Fri. morning some of us went out shopping to get those bargains!!! Then Fri. evening we had turkey bundles for supper when everyone was there (19 I think) and then did our stocking stuffers. Did I say "stocking" stuffers ??? Maybe I should have used the word "bag"! We look through our stuff and then go around and take turns showing everyone what we got--except Dad this year just waited and did it all at once!! :-) Then we opened presents from Mom and Dad and gave them ours.

We've grown! Can't all fit at one table now!

Waiting to do "stocking" stuffers!

Christmas Pic.

Janae wanted us to get our picture taken after church this morning so here we are--just missing Colin and Faith. :-) And... today's our 29th anniversary!! Happy Anniversary sweetheart!

Journey to Bethlehem

Yesterday evening we went to the Journey to Bethlehem. I hadn't been for maybe 4 years. Well, actually we went Fri. night. The first time we ever went we parked in the church parking lot. Friday night when we went it was full and they redirected us to another parking lot and bussed us over to the church. There was such a long line David thought we might have to stand in line for 2 hours so we ended up and left and decided to come back the next night but go earlier. I think the lady that bussed us back to the van said they'd rented 4 parking lots this year. So yesterday we got there like 2 min. until the time the website said it started and there was already a fairly long looking line. In fact as Janae was walking up to get in line she heard the men say to close that parking lot that we were in. Even though the line looked fairly long we moved rather quickly and maybe stood in line around a half hour. (We found out that they'd had over 4,000 people the night before and one lady said there was more last night than there had been the night before.) After you stand in line you finally get in the church and they give you a slip of paper with a Hebrew name which is now supposed to be your name. Then you wait in line to get into this part that has a stage in it and you sit in a group with your "family" and they give a play for you to watch while you wait for your "family" to be called to go on the journey. We were in the family of "Boaz" and "Hannah". They take you past the "Roman" guards and they ask some of you for your names. You stop at different "stations" where "Boaz" usually talks to some of the people--like a priest, the wisemen and the shepherds and others. You go through this market place where they act like they have stuff for sale. This one man asked if we wanted to buy this big fish. Dacia touched it and said it was real. Then after you finally get to where Jesus is then you can go and they give you a couple of cookies and some hot chocolate or water to drink. As you leave they have a group of carolers singing. We were there about 2 hours. It was a good thing we got there when we did. I don't know how long it would have taken us to get in if we'd waited to go very much later than that.

New Bedroom Furniture

I went on Craigslist and found some bedroom furniture awhile back (Oct.). We went and looked at it and bought it. I didn't like the color of it too well-- it was reddish looking-- and someone had tried to refinish it and had done a very poor job. Anyway, we asked a man to refinish it for us (Jerry Young's brother) in a darker color and we just got it back yesterday. I LOVE the darker color. It's so much nicer than what we had. How many of the drawers were coming apart on our old one and David took the dresser out and burned it. We thought the chest of drawers was better --and I guess it was-- but when I was taking things out of it yesterday I noticed one or two of the drawers that I didn't know about was breaking too so... it may be burned too. I got them when I was a junior in high school and it was used then so I don't know how old they were. This is the best we've ever owned and I really like it. We didn't get a headboard with it just the dresser, chest and night stand--which you can see a little of through the mirror.

SNOW!!

I wanted to get a picture of the snow before church as some of it was falling off the trees but I didn't have time. Anyway, we had our first snow even though it's already melted how much.

Thanksgiving

We didn't have as many people this year for Thanksgiving. We were going to go to Debbie's but she's in the midst of moving so we had it at our house again this year. Colin and Faith came but Jason and Dacia were gone to Indiana and David's dad and stepmother were with her son for lunch. They came over in the afternoon and some of us played some games and then later we all played a game together before David's folks and Debbie and Paul left.

Back again!

Hey, I know I'm behind but I guess I'll start from awhile back and work my way up. We've been really busy. Colin moved out and Janae wanted the bed from his room. She also wanted her room painted so we had to move things out of it to get it painted and then we worked on Colin's room. Jason did all the painting for us which was soooo nice as David hates to paint. Then we got some carpet laid in there. Actually we did it in all three bedrooms. All we've ever had was hard wood floors in them so this is different. Then we worked on our room getting it painted and carpeted. Then besides since we're getting different bedroom furniture I was going through the drawers in the dresser and throwing stuff away. We've lived here 20 years so I guess it's about time I did that. :-) I wanted to get this all done before Thanksgiving before Colin and Faith came. Whew! It was work but we made it!!

I went to Hobby Lobby the Saturday before Thanksgiving and they were getting rid of their fall stuff at 90% off. I spent around $11 and got over a $100 dollars worth of stuff! I took a picture of a couple of my bargains. The cornucopia was around $60 regular priced and the scarecrow was around $27 regular price so I got the cornucopia for around $6 and the scarecrow around $2.70. :-) (Sorry I didn't pay attention and straighten his leg when I took his picture or fix his arms better.) I took the cornucopia to church and set it on the altar in front of the pulpit and then took it home Wed. night and used it for Thanksgiving here at home. :-)