Day 66~ Santa Puzzle

Santa Puzzle

Every year at Christmas, Karen gets a puzzle. She usually starts it Christmas evening after This is this year's puzzle!

Day 65 ~ A Nice View!

ocean view

Last week, I helped someone deliver a hospital bed in Long Branch.  The ride was nice, the traffic tolerable and the view from the room where we set up the bed, fantastic! But, the actual apartment itself was horrible. Let's just say, it was so bad we almost walked out.  I'll spare you those pictures :)

See you tomorrow!

Day 64~ More Christmas Pics

A thumbs up Christmas morning!

Turns out I took more pics than I realized on Christmas Morning.  Here I am in front of the Tree.

Rachel

 No, that's not Rudolph, despite the red nose. Rachel, Sara'a friend, spent Christmas with us. Her family joined us later for dinner and you can see those pics from a couple of days ago right here.

Martha and Frank~ the in laws.

Exchanging gifts is always fun, don't you think?

It's still Christmas so MERRY CHRISTMAS!

See you tomorrow.

Day 63 ~ Justin!

hanging out, waiting for a ride!

I took this picture a few weeks back. My son Justin hanging out in the foyer of the church.  He was waiting on his sister and they were both taking a bus to New York to do some sight seeing. Justin had worked all night the evening before so he didn't get much sleep but I was glad that Sara didn't have to travel alone.

Sometimes taking a bus to New York makes more sense than driving in with a car. You don't have to deal with traffic or parking.  I know they both had a good time!

See you tomorrow

Day 62 ~ Bowling at the Navy Base

Don and me

Sara and Daniel wanted to meet their friends at the bowling alley but it was on the Navy Base. They needed someone with a military ID to get them on the base. I knew my retired Air Force status would come in handy for something. I didn't bowl but watched others. I really am no good at it and don't care enough about it to improve my game but I enjoyed watching the others and talking with everyone.

such form!

Did he knock them down? Can't remember

taking a rest

lightning throw!

took this with my Kindle

action shot!

Where are You?

Stacy wanted to know why Karen wasn't there. I said you can ask her yourself so I took this picture and sent it to Karen with the caption, Where are you? Karen wanted to be there but she had to pick up Matthew from work.

It was a nice evening. I have to do that again!

See you tomorrow.

Day 61~ Christmas at my house!

my tree

We had a fantastic day with family and friends. Karen' s cooking was outstanding. We hope your day was great too!

group shot; enjoying dessert

another group shot

After dessert, we played a game whose name I now forget in which you draw and/or guess what your neighbor has drawn. It's sort of like pictionary. Half of us cannot draw well and that is what makes the game hilarious! There was a lot of laughing going on!

See you tomorrow!

Day 60~ Merry Christmas!

a full house at church

 Last night at church, the Christmas Eve was packed! In fact, when I came in I felt a little claustrophobic so I asked the sound/video guys if I could worship from the Sound booth in the back. they said Yes. 

Jonathan, the sound guy.

 Jonathan is home for Christmas. It was good to see him at his old post behind the sound board. He is going to School for sound so he is almost a professional.

The video Screen person

The little Christmas lights you see by the video screen were put there by James.  I guess he wanted a festive feel for the sound booth workers.

Keeping track of Santa 

For some reason, James thought it would be important to track Santa's progress through the night so he placed a tablet on top of the sound stack so that all in the booth could see Santa's Dashboard.

NORAD Santa Tracker

As of the Christmas Eve service, Santa had just cleared Africa and was headed towards South America.

Pastor Del

As is our custom, Pastor Del went down the aisle while we all sang Silent Night Here is Pastor Del lighting the candles of a parishioner in the back.  He went to special pains to explain that you do NOT tilt a lit candle; otherwise wax gets on yourself (and he didn't say this but thought it, no doubt) and on the rug.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!

Norm, an usher let me take a picture of his candle.

Virtual Flames

We ran out of candles so the people in the sound booth went to plan B. Above, James turned on his candle App and a little flame lit. Everyone else in the sound booth pulled out their smart phones and did the same. I don't have a smart phone but I did have my Ipod so I lit my Candle app, too.

lots of candle light! 

Here is the church as candles are being lit.

I changed the church sign

I always hated when church signs advertised events that have passed. So, right after the service, I changed the sign to what it says above instead of  Christmas Eve Candlelight Service 7pm.  I can keep this Christmas message up till at least New Years!

Merry Christmas!

And as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us all, everyone!

See you tomorrow!

Special Video ~ Sara and Bill Sing "Oh, Holy Night"

a video montage I put together from pics on Flickr.com; all the pics are from the CREATIVE COMMONS so it is legal to post them. Below the video is a link to all the photographers!

It is Sara and Bill Singing!



See you tomorrow!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/picsbyclive/345034525/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fbchattiesburg/846107918/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roswellumc/8262647878/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/realestatezebra/8294337106/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hometowninvasion/306931680/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedepartment/69321549/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hodge/3396314/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/babasteve/3405971322/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/powi/2128373377/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77423179@N02/7669817362/in/faves-76429786@N00/
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/beautyofafrica/2093716886/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucias_clay/2077536970/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/midiman/72820497/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/willhumes/3126066202/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kjrokos/70190438/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/garlandcannon/3112966643/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/89373348/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alkelda/3978826722/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/feargal/5729491451/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/victorancheta/327523498/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giuliag/4216032915/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/willhumes/3126065668/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/schram/2118746439/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ted_abbott/2136256978/in/faves-76429786@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernatcg/4208592170/in/faves-76429786@N00/

Day 59~ Martha's Birthday!

Martha!

It was my mom-in-law's birthday yesterday! We celebrated in style with a fantastic cake and great coffee!

How old is Martha? You can ask her yourself, if you dare!

about to make a wish

a contemplative look for the birthday girl.

delicious cake!

The cake was delicious and was procured at the local Shoprite! Who knew they had such a delicious bakery department?

Happy Birthday, Martha! Many, many more!

See you tomorrow.

Day 58 ~ The Kids deliver Christmas Gifts to the Neighbors

The Kids who delivered the Gifts

The Senior's group in our church like to make little gifts for the neighbors; a gesture of good will to the houses around our parish and just a nice way to say Merry Christmas. They asked me to get a group of kids together to deliver the gifts. That is what we did this Saturday morning.

holding a gift; reading a prayer!

There were 22 gifts that needed to be delivered.  Since it was 9am, I figured an other really good Christmas gift for our neighbors is to NOT ring their doorbell so early. We decided to just leave the gift by their front door. 

Reading a prayer

Because as a church we really do love our neighbors, we thought it would be a good idea to say a pray for each neighbor  before we left the gift so I printed out three short prayers that the kids could chose from to ask God's Blessing on our neighbors. 

three prayers to choose from

Nice short prayers are the best; don't you think?

managing, despite the wind

It was pretty windy and a little cold but we made it through somehow.

I guess you can smile and pray at the same time

We made sure we prayed out loud so we could all pray along with them.

Striking a pose

 I must say, the kids weren't camera shy.

running to deliver a gift

 We only sent one kid at a time to the door so that people wouldn't feel overwhelmed if they happened to come to the door. As it is, two people did come to the door even though we didn't ring any door bells.

returning to the group, ninja style!

Some kids really like to ham it up!

Almost done!

 The kids enjoyed delivering the gifts.Before we actually went out to make the deliveries, we read from the book of Proverbs, chapter 18, verse 16~ "A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before the great."  We talked a little about gifts and how Jesus was the greatest Gift of all.

See you tomorrow.

Day 57 ~ Making Christmas Cookies!

Christmas Bells Before

 Karen was asked to make sugar cookies for the children's party at church. It turns out it isn't that easy to make because the cookie dough sticks easily and is hard to work with.  But Karen soldiered through!

Christmas Bells after

The cookies weren't decorated at home. Instead, they were transported to church where the kids would spread icing and sprinkles on them!

Sprinkles for the cookies!

 Sara helped out at the actual party so she sent these pics to me to show the progression of Christmas cookie fun.

a kid spreading the icing!

Yum, ready to eat!

The kids had a blast, I know!

Merry Christmas!

See you tomorrow.

Day 56 ~ Coins for Christmas Shopping!

Karen, beginning to pour coins

 All year long, Karen has emptied my pockets and collected all the coins from those pockets and put them into a can. Well, we collected two cans worth of coins and went to TD Bank to cash them in. How much did we get? Enough for some modest Christmas Shopping!

Karen pouring in the coins

Penny Arcade

If you guess within $1.99 of what you think your total will be, you get a prize. Luckily, we did NOT even come close to winning because we guessed too low!

a Christmas display at the Bank

Yes, I took a lollipop!

 A display at one of the stores we shopped in

We spent the rest of the day in the stores and paid cash for all the gifts! Merry Christmas everyone!

See you tomorrow!