Holiday Season 2013

 Thanksgiving was at Jennifer and Jeremy's house, with the twins and Mimi and Jennifer's aunt and uncle.  Very low key, excellent food, and a beautiful table.

 Later I helped the twins decorate Christmas cookies.  Jennifer did all the work, baking cookies and making the icing, I just helped the kids spread the icing on.  They like THICK icing.

A few days before, the twins and I visited at the Durst's house and saw young Will Durst, visiting for Thanksgiving. He is such a happy boy, smiling whenever I see him. I don't think the twins were overly impressed, but he tried to make the walker go to follow them around.

 John went to Austin and the UT football game.  He got his game day face on.

 Bill's grandson William came to visit for Thanksgiving.  He helped Bill decorate the airplane Christmas tree.  I have given Bill an airplane ornament from the Hallmark "Sky's the Limit" series every year since it stared. So now Bill has 17 little airplane ornaments to hang on this tree.  He also has a few other airplane ornaments collected over the years.  William got a kick out it.

I had the twins over one evening and they helped me decorate my tree. They put up every last ornament, even the old kid-made ones that are almost falling apart. I helped some, but most of the ornaments on the tree are in the bottom 3 1/2 feet.

Then I started shopping for Christmas. Oh, not on Black Friday, but on-line.  Over the post Thanksgiving weekend I ordered nearly all my Christmas presents from Amazon, WalMart and a tech store. Oh, I did buy myself a new 5 disk DVD duplicator.  It was on sale through Amazon and I have already used it to duplicate nearly 100 disks! Lets me expand JanMa's Digital Memories capabilities.

 

 Then an arctic blast of air blew in, and I dug out my heavy coat, scarf, gloves and earmuffs! Yes earmuffs, I firmly believe in them.  If my hands and ears are warm, the rest of me is pretty much OK.  All I need beyond that is a nose warmer, and the scarf can do that job OK too.  I'm not fond of really cold air, but it did cause my camellias to bloom.

 It was also cold and icy in Dallas/McKinney area.  Jason stayed home at least one day from work and the roads were empty, at least as near as I could tell from the news. The pictures coming in from family, facebook and the news showed a solid frozen coat of ice on the roads and elsewhere.  Taylor bundled up so much to go outside, I wouldn't know it was her except for I know who sent the picture.  Only her nose is barely visible.

I started a new project for a client, with video tape that was nearly 30 years old. I had to take it apart, splice it a few times and put the tape into another case in better condition.  Finally got the footage onto a DVD.  Nice learning challenge.

The most recent event was Claire's dance recital.  Bill and Mimi and I met Jeremy and Jake there to watch.  Claire and her whole class were so cute.  Jennifer was the only backstage mom for that class, and she had her handsfull riding herd on a bunch of 3-4 year olds for several hours.  I brought here some glittery carnations, and she told me she also got roses!

Next weekend I'm off to McKinney to see Taylor's dance recital.