Julie and I went over today and gave Alexander & Cassandra their Christmas presents.
Here they got ahold of grampa's cell phone and called their other great gramma, Solange. She enjoyed talking to them.
We are having a white Christmas here. Early in the morning there was just a few clouds and about a ¼ inch of new snow.
The 3 Sisters really stood out before the clouds moved in. The sun glistened off the white snow with the blue background it was really picturesque, but not quite so much by the time I took the picture, so use your imagination.
This is actually a sunset earlier in the week. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas.
We had 2 bonfires. One was for the "Olde Fashioned Christmas" that the association puts on. After the parade we open the church for hot chocolate, coffee, cookies, and popcorn so the people can warm up then the brave ones can go sing carols around the bonfire. We had about 100 people participate with the refreshments but not so many caroling because it was 12 degrees outside. At 7:00 we had our Christmas musical but I didn't get any pictures of that. We had another bonfire for the youth group on Tuesday night.
On the 17th we had a all church Christmas party which featured "The Bunkhouse Boys". The one on the right with the plaid shirt has a starter pistol so he always fires a couple of rounds.
Sherry Ream led us in "The 12 days of Christmas on Crooked River Ranch". She divides us up and we have motions to do for each of the days and the things that our honey bought for us is things like tumbles weeds, rattle snakes, golden eagles etc.
The teenagers did a puppet skit and the puppets sang a Christmas song by veggietales.
The whole program is centered around some daughters coming home for Christmas and singing Christmas carols. This is Judy Small singing "My Grown-up Christmas list".
Dave and Malissa read a Christmas story while scenes were displayed. They talked with a different voice for each animal. It was great and they got the right voices for the each animal. 
This is Tom and Gail Harlow some friends of ours from church. And below is Linda the church's administrative assitant. She is the one who took such good care of mom while we were in Slovenia.
Last Wednesday was our last Wednesday night service for the year, so we went Christmas caroling to 3 homes. Afterwards we came here and sang to Julie's mom and then had cookies and coffee and hot chocolate. It was a really fun evening, and Julie's mom enjoyed the singing very much.
We got back from our beach trip today. We forgot to take the camera so we didn't get any pictures of our trip, but we had a good time and nice weather. Mom and I went for a couple of walks by the pool and on the sidewalk that looks down on the beach. She thought it was marvelous and beautiful. We also would go in the car to a few shops in the afternoons. We went to the shop where I got the M&M dispenser last year and I got this one this year. Pust down on the drivers arm and the lower trunk opens to dispense the M&Ms, you fill it by opening the runble seat. We are really glad we all went.
The final night there was a talent show for all the JV Kids. It was so special to watch them perform whatever they wanted to and be completely celebrated afterward. We kept Abigail awake later that night and she enjoyed being in the midst of it all, being passed from girl to girl who wanted to hold her and a couple who didn't actually invite her, but she stood in front of them until they picked her up. It was cute.
Thanksgiving...a time to share with others, laugh, help, eat, and just be together. 38 people, 6 of them, people from the ranch who don't come to church. I even gave mom a couple of tastes!
Finally, a chance to kiss, hug, and say, "how is school?" "how are you?" "What have you been up to?" We spent the day in the courthouse waiting to see how it would all come out for the kids and for Tony and Jennifer. In the end, they decided to work on parenting, although divorced, and Tony will get to see his kids with Jennifer there. We met them at the pizza parlor and had a couple of hours before having to leave. The day before mom was taken to the hospital, and so we had to see her, and speak to her doctor. She is pretty sick, what a letdown after only being home for 5 days.
Alexander is so sweet, he misses us, was so glad to see us, and is growing up so fast.
Tony had a very good time with them. They were very excited to see him, and spent most of the time keeping his busy in the game room. 
Cassandra is the cutest! She is very precocious, just a bubbly little thing, and she was very glad to see us all!
Cassandra liked the hat and belt and blouse that we bought, Amy. So did Alexander! They all looked as if they will fit great!
On Tuesdays we went to Portland to a Josiah Venture vision night. We left early so that we could see Monty and Jolee. We met them at a chinese restaurant and had dinner before the event. We met Shawn and Christena at the event and it was fun seeing them. They had interviewed with Josh Patti, the leader of Josiah Vneture in Slovenia, in the afternoon and then stayed for the vision night. I also talked to Jon, Joel's brother, for awhile. It was a long day because we didn't gfet home until 12:30 but I'm really glad that we went.
