Back to Work (Tomorrow)

Well, Christmas has come and gone. We had a great time with family and friends. Tracy still has the rest of the week off, but I have to go back tomorrow.

This Christmas has been bittersweet. Christmas Eve service at church was outstanding. I am always in awe of how the Lord has blessed us with the Greatest Gift of all, Jesus.

It was great to see the grandkids' eyes light up when they opened their presents and there was a lot of terrific food. But Allan's holiday was not as much fun. About 4 months ago he got hurt at work. December 23rd he had to have the little finger on his right hand amputated. Since our family Christmas was Christmas Eve at Allan and Jessica's, he spent the evening on high powered pain meds and I'm sure he doesn't remember much about the evening. Through the support of his wonderful wife and many, many prayers, he will come through this and will be back to work in no time. God is truly good! He is very fortunate that it was only his finger. If he had been using the tool like his employer said he should have, the part that malfunctioned would have hit him in the face instead and we might have lost him!

Not only did we spend time with our family and eat way too much, we rode our motorcycles. We rode to Inman yesterday (46 degrees) to see Dad and Barb. Today we just took off and rode around. Today the temp was better (57 degrees). There aren't too many days in December that are warm enought to ride and we took advantage of the day. If you haven't experienced the open road, you haven't lived!

It will be hard to go back to work tomorrow, but this Christmas, with the economy so bad, I am very thankful for my job. Every day is a gift.

The Tradition Continues

Every year the women in our family get together to make Christmas candy. According to Tracy, the only candy we need to make is Peanut Brittle. Chrissy spent the night with us and was awake bright and early to begin making candy. Jessica and Dawn came over too. Sierra stayed at home and had a day with her daddy. Since Jackie had a Sunday School party in the afternoon, she only came for a while. We made fudge, no-bakes, chocolate cherries, peanut clusters, dipped pretzels, peppermint brittle, turtles and just about anything we could dip in chocolate. As you can see by the picture, Chrissy and I really got "into" our work.

Everyone gathered their goodies and everyone was gone by about 3PM. Another year of sweet treats and sweet memories.