Week Before Christmas

Christmas finally came to my house in the last two weeks.  Don helped me put the lights outside and I got the house decorated with the tree finally up over the weekend.  I'm a little slow this year.  I didn't think I was going to be having Christmas at my house so I wasn't in a hurry.  Things changed.

After talking with Kenna, Mac and Ricki, it was going to make it hard for Paige and her family coming from Austin & Ray's family to go to Tulsa and be with the rest of us.  We wanted see all of them so it was decided we could do it at my house on Christmas Night with a smaller meal.

Mary is going to bring a turkey and homemade ravioli and Ricki, Kenna and I will fill in the rest.

Christmas isn't Christmas without making candy and I did that on Sunday. Yum Yum!

Peanut Butter balls made out of Nutter Butters

Red Velvet cake balls

Chocolate Cake balls

Chex Mix with Cheetos

Peanut and Cashew clusters

My very willing official taster!!!

Now it's beginning to feel a lot like CHRISTMAS!!!!

I boxed up some of the cake balls and gave them to my neighbors and left a few for us. 

I'll have to go back on Weight Watchers after that's all eaten.

Gave Abby a bath and haircut to be pretty for company on Christmas.

 
I usually do this in the garage but it was too cold out there so I just put her in the sink.
She is laying on her soft blanket next to me this evening with her sweater on.

 

Ricki is finally here for good today.  The movers came this morning, loaded and they will unload at the cottage tomorrow.  She and Chris then headed out about noon and got here about 6:00 after some delays from a wreck around Guthrie. Can't believe she is going to be living in OKC.  They haven't sold their house yet in KS. Hope it sells soon.

Chris's 16th birthday is tomorrow.  Happy Birthday Chris!! He will be going to Bishop McGuiness High School & is in the 10th grade.

Christmas at Mom's

Mom invited us to the Assisted Living on Friday night for their Christmas Celebration. They were serving dinner with Christmas music and giveaways.  About 100 residents and their families gathered for dinner.

A line began to form before they let us find our tables.

Mom had gotten her hair styled earlier in the day and she looked like a million dollars. She is feeling better every day with a little more energy.  We sit at the table with a couple of her neighbors and her daughter.

The decorations & tables looked very festive and the meal was Cornish hens. It tasted great!

Christmas Gathering

I'm not quite sure how I was able to acquire such great friends but I am so happy to have them. I know that they will have my back through thick and thin. In fact, they have already been tested several times. Thank you for being in my life Ann, Connie E, Connie O, Vickie, and Gail.

We had our Christmas Gathering last night at the Hideaway on NWExpressway. I say that because some didn't quite get the message and had to be rerouted from the Western restaurant. They made it and we were all together, all six of us for the first time in about a year. We have gotten together several other times during the last year but each time someone was missing.

High priority was to get caught up on all the families.

Gail told us about Taylor being in Belgium, getting engaged before he left in August and getting married in July. Blake is in LA with the Clippers and trying to get the team through some tough loses & staying positive during this losing season.  He and Taylor have never been on a losing team and this is a new experience for both of them. He has a girlfriend he met out there.  Gail will get to see them both over Christmas for a couple of days.  Not enough for Mom & Dad but she knows they are busy. They are going to Belguim in the spring to see Taylor.

Ann told us about going to Seattle for Thanksgiving, which turned out to be cold and bad weather but in the Casinos who cares. Right Ann, she was a big winner.  George had gotten a new necklace made for her in remembrance of her mom and dad. Beautiful!! She is still enjoying her job at Bishop-McGuinness & will be working forever. She showed pictures of the grand baby & brought us up to date on how George is feeling.
She came by the house and picked me up so we got to talk more that way.

Connie O. has been extremely busy going back and forth from Ft. Worth helping with Cameron & Kristi's babies while getting ready for the new baby.  She has 7 grandkids, Kristi has four and Cameron has 3.  She has traveled to Hawaii and several other places but it had been too long and couldn't remember where. LOL
She is having trouble with her back and that is limiting her activities some. 

Connie E. talked about retiring this year, selling her house & moving in with Dixie, her mom that lives in Norman. Kailey has a boyfriend that is helping out with money and the kids and they plan on moving out of Connie's house in February.  Chase is moving in with his girlfriend sometime in January, probably.  They are serious. She is going to Kansas for Christmas with her family.

Vicki S talked job and about the transition period between the two administration at the State Superintendents office, old and newly elected. She works in state certification for teachers and things are changing with the newly elected State Superintendent. She is very worried & stressed out about her job.
Isabelle has joined the Air National Guard because she wants to fly and she thought she would be doing basic training in Feb in San Antonio but she didn't get in until May.  No change with Jerry.

Most of them follow my blog so I won't go over that but they were interested in hearing about my pickleball playing. Most had never heard of it. I took my book to show pictures about the walk in Dallas.

We also discussed out trip to New Braunfels in June.  Vickie is worried she won't be able to go because of work.  Hope she get to.  Gail isn't going to be able to take off work to go.  We are going to try and meet in Feb and April to do some more planning about the trip.

We talked for about 3 hours and had a great time along with some great pizza.

Thanks for a fun time ladies.

Other happenings this week have to do with doctors. It seems like every December we have to start squeezing in doctor appointments in before the end of the year.

I had a bone density test on Monday that turned out fine. Hadn't had one for eleven years.  Then went to the physical therapist for my left lower back pain that has been with me for over 15 years.  The GP thought that therapy could help it.
I went to the Physical Therapist again today and will go at least 4 more times.  It seemed to be better today but then I got stuff out of the attic to decorate for Christmas and it was sore again. 
Don went to the GP yesterday because he had a UTI infection before we went to San Diego last week and the doc was checking to make sure it was gone.  It was.

Tomorrow we both go to the dermatologist to get checked out.

I finally got the Christmas stuff out of the attic. Better late than never.  Don helped put the lights up outside and it looks pretty good.  Haven't got the tree put up yet but maybe tomorrow.

Welk Resort in Escondido, CA

Tuesday through today were great days.

We played pickleball each morning. Tuesday afternoon we played 18 holes of a par 3 golf course on the grounds of Welk. Wednesday afternoon we geocached and today we relaxed, packed and walked around the grounds of Welk and took some pictures

This is an overview of the Welk resort, we are staying in the far upper left corner of complex. These are the newest units.

I was trying to get in the picture before it went off. I didn't make it!

Made it but hurt my knee setting down

The biggest news around here on the news has been the burning of the bomb house in Escondido, Ca.  They set it on fire about 10:30 this morning. Everything went well and no problems.

Some Christmas shots!!

Oceanside Pickleball

Today we took a little trip to Oceanside. It is only about 15 miles from our condo.  The purpose - Pickleball, of course.  We had been told that they played on Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays in Oceanside and Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays in Escondido.

So off we went to meet a whole new bunch of Pickleball players.  They were all very nice and willing to play with new players.  They kidded us about being from Oklahoma and the Sooners.

But we showed them how to play pickleball, LOL! I think we won most if not all the games we played.  Pretty good! Fun to see that we can compete with players that have played for longer. They have 8 dedicated pickleball courts and six were busy today while we were there.

After playing we got some lunch, we then found a trail by the river that had several geocaches so we walked about a mile and found 11 caches in this area and walked back to the car.  It was a beautiful day in the high 60's, clear and no wind. 

Headed back to the resort because they were having a Farmer's Market from 1:00 to 5:00.  Walked through and got kettle corn, warm roasted peanuts and cookies.  Ordered a pizza to take back to the room and headed in for the night. 

California Sun

Up early this morning to get shower and be ready to play pickleball by 8:30.  Very important. LOL
We were able to play 7 or 8 games with some really good players.  Had a great time and going to different courts tomorrow in Oceanside to play.

We were tired by 11:00 and went back to the room and took showers.

Next stop lunch at Von's in Escondido, love their sandwiches. We get them everyday. In fact we ate half at lunch and the rest at dinner today.

We were dragging a little but decided to do some geocaches around town.

We found a cache at the base of this huge electric pole but that is not the interesting item in this picture.  One of the trees was a cell phone tower. Can you tell which one?  It was a great camoflage.

We found 10 caches by 3:30 and headed back to the room.

I watched Amazing Race and worked on my blog and Don slept in front of the TV.

Life is Good!!

Beautiful December Day

Last Thursday was just beautiful.  The morning started out cold but there wasn't much wind and we had clear skies. We spotted a hot air balloon out our back kitchen window.  

The day was busy getting the laundry washed up & neighborhood newsletter written for us to leave on our trip to Escondido, CA on Friday afternoon. I also wanted to go to Weight Watchers meeting at 5:30.  They started their new program and I needed to start again.  After Thanksgiving I had gained 14 lbs from my low and wanted to get started on losing it before the Christmas pounds also crept on.

As I left to go to the meeting.  A hot air balloon was flying over our house very low and looked like he was landing in the empty field to the north of us. Sure enough that is what he did.

I stopped and took these pictures.  We see balloons occasionally but two in one day was unusual.

Also, here is my new weight watchers program.  We will start it when we get back home. Time to lose those extra turkey lbs. Gobble Gobble!

FRIDAY, I had to finish the newsletter, run it off at the printers and get it distributed, iron and pack clothes, bath Abby and get her to the kennel before we left at noon for the airport. Don went over to the Quail Springs Baptist Church where we work out to get the gym floor marked off for the pickleball court.  We are going to start playing there since the Sante Fe Courts told us we couldn't play there anymore because the tennis players thought we made too much noise. 

I got it all done but not without Don's help in getting the newsletter distributed and taking Abby to the kennel. 

Arrived in San Diego about 5:00 and was worried about the evening traffic because we had about 30 miles to drive to the Welk resort. It was already dark when we arrived but the traffic wasn't that bad (8 lanes) and we had no problems getting here.

We checked in and then drove back to Escondido and ate and got groceries. Home by 8:00 and in bed by 9:00.  The time change kicked our butts. 

SATURDAY,  We were up by 5:00 am of course and went and worked out by 8:00. Did our hour cardio and walked around the grounds of the resort.  Didn't take any pictures.

We decided to go into Escondido and get some lunch and then do some geocaching in the area.  First we were going to drive north a couple of miles to see if we could find the pickleball courts that I had read about on the internet.  When we arrived a lady was setting things up for their Christmas party.  We talked to her and she invited us to come & play.  We never made it to geocaching.

Went back to our room and changed clothes and had some soup.  We were playing pickleball by 2:00 and played all afternoon.  It gets dark by 4:30 and cools down fast. Meet a lot of good players but we were able to compete & have fun.

Thank goodness we are able to see the OU game here tonight.  GO SOONERS!!!