Nice Quiet Christmas

We hope that everybody had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was quiet and very nice as we enjoyed relaxing by working on some of our ongoing projects - Josie with her afghan, and me with my latest cross stitch project. We enjoyed some music and even played a couple games which we haven't done in ages. Next year, if everything works out according to plan, we are hoping that we can enjoy Christmas with family.

The week before New Year's should also be a quiet one as Josie is only scheduled to work a couple days and we have no plans to go anywhere. Maybe we can catch up on some projects we have been delaying to do around the house with the extra free time. Relaxing will still be priority number one.

If we can get the storm track to take a different route this week we may even get some nice weather. The weather has been basically wet and cool this past week with the forecast showing more of the same in the next couple of days. The rain is actually welcome, but in moderation.

There will be some great college football games on TV this entire week so enjoy those. The pros will begin their playoffs soon, so get ready for those games also. I believe they will start after the first of the new year.

Stay warm and dry until next time...

Christmas 2018

We had planned to go to church last night (Christmas Eve) but the timing of the services - 3 PM and 5 PM - were too close to when Josie got off work. In fact, she didn't get home until almost 4 PM which was really pushing it for church. Josie had a lot going on at work during the day with lots of food being brought in by the owners and all the employees. We were pleasantly surprised at the generosity of the owners who provided gifts to all employees, including a $100 gift card. The difference between this ownership and the Phoenix Flower Shops owners is like night and day. The gifts that Josie received amounted to more than what Josie received, collectively,  in 10 years at the other shop. Not that that is so important, but it does show how appreciated the employees are at this shop.

We also received this nice shot of the Guido boys (and Oakley) on this Christmas Eve:

What a handsome group!

We were up at 6 AM this morning to discover that Santa made a quick stop at our house. We are thankful for our nice gifts and look forward to having a nice Christmas dinner at George and Cheryl's house where we will also see the other Reed's - Amy, Brian, Jason and Jesse.

Enjoy your Christmas Day everybody!!

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. Santa came to our house and we hope he also came to yours. Many of our gifts are scattered though, as he didn't know which ones to put under the tree. Our tree is kind of small anyway, so he probably figured there was no room for more presents:

We went to Mt Zion Lutheran Church in Peoria last night for the candlelight service. It was our first visit to this church, and we were surprised at the format that was used. Instead of having a single sermon, they had two clergy - the Pastor and an assistant - give several, short Christmas Meditations throughout the service. It was good in that it broke up the service and didn't bore any of the children that were present. We sang lots of carols, and there were several duets by artists from the congregation. All in all, it was a nice service, but it lacked Communion which is something we look forward to when we go to church. We will most likely try another Lutheran church in the area next time

We have been "blessed" by high winds again during the night. It is gusting to over 30 mph and the average wind speed is 12.5 since midnight last night. Comes with the territory, I guess.

Our plan is to go to George and Cheryl's today for Christmas dinner and we are looking forward to that. Josie has her first day off in the last 10 days, and will return tomorrow for a short day. Following that, she will be off until January 2nd and we will travel to western AZ for a few days at the end of the year. It should be a fun time for the next week...

White Christmas in Chattanooga, TN

Here it is, for only the second time in the last 100 years - white Christmas in Chattanooga, TN:

It is still snowing - probably a total of 1-2" by now, but it is 34 degrees, so I would expect it to change to rain or stop pretty soon. We are 2 miles from the Georgia border and it still snows. Sheesh!

We went to the church service last night and we arrived early thinking it would be crowded. With only ten minutes to go before the start of the service at 7 PM, the church looked like this:

The service did start at 7 PM and there were probably 30 people there. It was a nice service though and we felt better that we attended.

It was back to our rig to watch some TV and wait for Santa to arrive. Our living room was decorated with our tree, nativity scene and a few other
small Christmas items, and the only thing missing were our "stockings hung from the chimney with care":

Maybe next year for the stockings.

We hope everybody has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!