Did the Christmas decorating this evening! We've decide to keep it simple this year with a small tree and just a few lights in the livingroom window. Jack is not feeling particularly Christmasee and I am ok with minimal decorating.
The Santa's and Nutcrackers are out of course. I enjoy unwrapping them each year and remmembering when I received each one. Most of them have been given to me by the boys over the years, a few have come from friends and some I've bought myself - each one has a memory attached! Tonight I shared some of them with Jack as we decorated. I have several skiing Santa's and Nutcracker's which were received when I was enjoying cross country skiing as often as possible.
I came across a Santa in a canoe tree ornament in Jack's Christmas decorations! How neat is that! It's as close as I've seen to a Santa in a Inflatable Kayak yet! Our friends Caron and Rocky have outfitted themselves with Class 4 capable IK's so we'll be able to do a wide range of rivers in 2008! Mike told me he really wants to do some whitewater with us this coming summer and I'm looking forward to that. We'll have quite a floatilla!
I hope everyone is enjoying the season with friends and family! We are planning on having a big Christmas Dinner with Caron and Rocky in Roseburg, then traveling on up I5 to Mike's place in Corvallis to exchange gifts with Caleb and Mike and have a Christmas "lunch" with them and be back home on Christmas Eve. Brett called and let us know he received his Christmas package in Japan and opened everything immediately. According to Jack, Brett was using his new electric shaver as he talked to him! Brett is leaving on the 22nd of December for two weeks in Thailand! He'll be mixing work with pleasure. He is looking for a teaching position there and he plans on doing some "solo deep water diving" - which is rock climbing a cliff over deep water - if you fall you go diving (dropping!) into the water and if you make it to the top you have to dive in to get back to the boat! Brett will be doing the most dangerous thing of us all I'm willing to bet!
This morning was spent at Dad's house. Gary and Jack spent several days earlier this week clearing things out, taking pictures so the grandkids can let us know what they'd like to have and taking care of legal matters. Today Jack and I brought home some things. The neatest being a unique ceramic yellow pitcher that Jack remembers always held Koolaide when he was about 6 years old. It's in perfect condition and we look forward to serving our grandkids (when we get some) fruit juice from it. Do they allow you to feed kids Koolaide anymore??? Hmmm.
We have a thin coating of snow on the ground and a lot of ice from snow melting and then the temperatures dropping below freezing again. At 4 pm it was only 29 degrees althought the skies were blue and the sun shining! It is looking and feeling like winter here!
Happy Holidays!
