We went for a drive tonight to look at the Christmas lights in the area.  Some of the homes are absoultely fabulous, a number of them right here in our neighborhood.  Probably the funniest one we saw was behind the Ace Hardware in the residential area there where there was a Cowboy Santa hugging a cactus.  Just so Arizona!  At one house there was a natvity scene (that was off Dunbar) that from a distance was really beautiful.  Up close it lost some of its beauty because the lights kind of “smugged” together but from a distance it was far more detailed looking.  It was neat to see the number of houses that were decorated and how they can decorate the yards in the detail they do.  GW commented that it was unusual for us to see that since in the cold country it wasn’t possible to do everything they can do here.

We will be having friends and family here on the 26th, be at Cyn and Drew’s for Christmas Day and at Ken and Jennifer’s for Christmas Eve.  Then on the 30th we have the Rotary party here. We have the inside decorated but we didn’t do anything outside this year.  We had talked about it earlier but the season just seemed to jump out and get here before we were ready.  Shoot, with Thanksgiving being so late it just seems like Christmas was “rushed.”

Church this morning was fun.  The little kids put on a short presentation of the baby in a manger.  The “wise” man was Aberham, a little bitty guy, probably 2 1/2 years old carrying the biggest, fluffiest sheep we’ve ever seen.  It was far fatter than Aberham and almost as tall.  So cute!  The angel and Mary were both Asian.  What a great mix!  The Christmas carols were fun although there weren’t a lot of them, 5 I think.  Nice service.

We stopped over at Cyn and Drew’s after church to give them some of the buns that we had gotten at church.  Drew offered to make egg sandwiches for breakfast, we took him up on them.  He did a great job, they were wonderful!

This week will be interesting since there probably won’t be anyone to get in touch with for work so guess I’ll work on getting the collective information together about the sites and do some building.  I’ve done some today and yesterday but not nearly enough.  Greg did a video of Arizona for the site, it’s really pretty cool.  He’ll be able to do them for all the states now that he has this program to work with, nice touch.

I did get to visit with my brother on Friday, it was his birthday.  Sounded like he was going to have a nice day, nothing special but certainly enjoyable, steak dinner and then watching Mama Mia.  Sounded so good to me that I suggested we get it for Christmas Day to watch at Drew and Cyn’s.

We watched movies today, classics on TV.  It was kind of neat, haven’t done that in years.  Started watching thema t Cyn and Drews and then came home and finished that one and watched another.  The football wasn’t in the cards for me today, just couldn’t get juiced about it even with the Cardinals playing and the Vikings playing (the Cardinals got stomped!)

I hope that our grand-kids enjoy Christmas and get what they need (and some of what they want) and that the kids do too.  We didn’t go crazy with gifts this year, but everyone got something they either said they wanted or we figured they could use.  It’s hard when they really don’t need much or if they do it is not something that would be appropriate for us to buy (like underwear for one of the big boys LOL)

Our friend, Bob Prins, fell a short time ago and broke his leg in numerous places.  Spent 8 days in the hospital and now is walking (kind of) with a walker.  He should heal just fine but wow…not a good thing.  Ruth wrote and told us what had happened.  I’ll send a note off to Bob this week, poor guy!

Have a Blessed Christmas and a successful and happy New Year.