Christmas is almost here!

In just a few days, Christmas will be here!  We only have two more days of work in 2008 - it's really hard to believe that time has gone that fast.  I am looking forward to spending time with our families and friends.  Life has been busy and when time is at minimum, blogging is usually the first thing to go.  But I do have a few minutes for a short random update right now.

We had fun going Christmas caroling last night with our church.  It has been really cold so it was nice to jump back into a warm car after each house/nursing home that we went to.  Christmas has kinda snuck up on me this year.  It's always a busy time, but this year has been exceptionally so as we've moved, spent 2 weekends in other states, had friends over 5 times and more in just the last 5 weeks!  So our plan today is to go shopping for Christmas presents!  I'm sure we're not the only ones with this plan today and I'm looking forward to hopefully finding gifts for each family member on our list.  Sunday will be busy with Church in the morning where John is playing an arrangement on his violin with 3 flutes and the piano.  Then on Sunday night we have a family Christmas service where many families will be singing songs together.  We're singing with the Lanhams as we've pretty much been 'adopted' into their family here.  John is also accompanying a couple families on the piano.

So that's a bit about our life.  Time passes by so quickly and often I think of many of you who read this blog and wonder what's going on in your lives.   I hope that in this Christmas busyness that you are able to pause and remember our Savior Jesus Christ.

Fun Snow

Having been in Ohio for a few months now, I've seen more than in my entire 14 years in Alabama - no, make that more than my 28 years in Alabama, Arkansas and Africa! That may be a slight overstatement, but not by much! I'm sure by the end of winter here, it will be genuine fact!
This afternoon as I drove home from work, we had what I'll term fun snow. It just started and has not done too much yet as you can see from the picture. The weather is not too cold (ONLY 28º) so the snow is still melting on one's windshield. The snow is beautiful as is slowly comes down. It's not coming too fast and doesn't interfere with driving. So, to me it is fun to watch as you drive.

I'm home early as we're soon leaving for Illinois. Both Lisa and Anita (John's sisters) are graduating on Saturday so we're using that as an excuse to visit. I'm looking forward to the trip! The snow seems somewhat localized. I think it will stop once we get past Cincinnati. We shall see. . .

Unexpected Guests!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I received a most welcome call from my friend Ivory letting me know that they were driving through this area later that day! What wonderful news! We had before us a lazy Saturday without much planned so we were very glad to hear they would come for the night!

As I did a little cooking that afternoon, John put together our new ping pong table so we could break it in with Chris and Ivory.

The table fit perfectly in our basement and we enjoyed some friendly competition!

"The ball was on his side"

Having guests is a joy!