Merry Christmas!

Sorry...still no pictures (although Bill apparently likes my blog this way....it WON'T be this way for long!) As soon as I arrive back in Texas the picture uploading shall commence!

Our Christmas Day was a wonderful one spent surrounded by family. We began our day opening presents with Mom, Jerry, Marty, Heather and me. Soon after my brother Levi and his girlfriend Ashley arrived and more presents were opened. Then the rest of the family arrived (my brother Davy and his wife Lis; my sister Regina, her husband Greg and their kids Brandon and Danielle; my Uncle Bobby and his wife Marie; my mom's cousin JoAn; my sister Lacey and her husband Casey; my niece CeCe; and my grandpa.) Our dog Missy was so excited by all these people...except Grandpa made her a bit nervous. We think it's because he walks with a cane.

After gorging on smoked turkey, smoked ham and all the trimmings (fixin's as they say here!) it was time to open even more presents! Mom bought Regina and me each a new deluxe Scrabble game. The 3 of us have long loved playing Scrabble together and it's a tradition after Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners that at least one game of Scrabble is played. I have a Scrabble game and have been tempted to purchase the deluxe version so the tiles will stay in place and the board game can be rotated easily because it's on its own lazy susan. Now I have one!

Before the traditional Scrabble game, the gals all decided to take a walk. With cameras in hand of course Mom, Regina, Lis, Lacey, CeCe and I all headed out. As soon as we headed down the driveway my grandma Margie and her friend Dick arrived so we came back to the house and Grandma decided to join us for our walk. Once we arrived back at Mom's driveway after a circle around one of the logging roads through the woods Mom and Grandma decided to go back to the house to get warm. Regina and I decided to show Lacey and the rest where we used to walk in the pine tree forest across the highway from Mom's place. It's such a beautiful, peaceful forest. There's isn't the crunching of leaves as you walk there...the floor of the forest is covered in soft pine needles. And as Regina had us all stop to notice, the sound of the wind whistling through those trees is such a cool sound. Of course we stopped often to take pictures and the younger generation laughed and joked about whether Mom would stop to photograph a mushroom we found. Of course she did! (I did not photograph the mushroom!)

We arrived back home to find the men and teenagers starting a movie so we joined them to watch it. I fell asleep and took a nap and missed the whole thing, but was ready for the Scrabble game as soon as it was over. Or...I thought I was ready. I lost the game....even LACEY beat me by 4 points! How sad! ha ha (Of course it was all because I kept drawing vowels and no consonants and at one time had 4 O's and then drew another one...and Marty took pity on Lacey and aided her!)

Tomorrow I look forward to shopping with Heather for bargains and meeting an old friend for coffee.

I hope each of you enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with family and loved ones!