A SIGN FOR HOPE ~~ A MERRY TIME INDEED ~~ PARTING SHOT

A SIGN FOR HOPE

On New Year's morning, Linda and I awoke to a bit of rain here in Yakima. Upon her going outside, she was met with this most beautiful sight directly across from our front porch.

New day, new year

You can just barely see the beginnings of a second rainbow off to the right. It was a most welcome beginning to the new year, hopefully as a sign of good things to come.

A MERRY TIME INDEED

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and Santa brought you all kinds of goodies. We had a fantastic time here in Yakima, although it turned out to be a "brown" Christmas instead of a "white" one. We have had very few Christmases here in Yakima that didn't have snow on the ground, so it is kind of unusual. Up until we moved here, I think I maybe saw two white Christmases in the 55 years I lived in North Carolina. It wasn't even very cold this year, and that is also unusual.

On the Monday before Christmas, Emily and Wendy arrived on the Airporter bus from the SeaTac airport. We had set up a puzzle on the card table in the den so we would all have room to sit around it. It turned out to be a great idea as it was there and available whenever someone wanted to spend some time on it. We had a lot of fun working on it even though it was a pretty tough puzzle. This one was yet another of Colin Thompson's puzzles (my favorite ones), titled "The Christmas Cupboard." We weren't able to finish it before our guests went home, but Linda and I managed to get it done on January 4th.

"Christmas Cupboard"

Just getting started

Team effort

Christmas Eve is always a fun time, as this is when we open our stocking gifts. Everyone's stockings were brimming over with gifts this year. I do believe this is the most fun time, because we do it during drinkiepoo hour, so there's that. And sometimes the presents can be quite funny or unusual, as we struggle to find things that only cost a few dollars. This is not any easy task anymore!

Peanut butter, a perennial favorite

A kitchen gadget

Her favorite kind of crackers

Post-It Notes saying
"Do no harm, but take no crap"

As you can see, stocking gifts run the gamut from the mundane (peanut butter) to the sublime (kitchen gadgets!). Here are some of the more unusual gifts this year:

Linda gave me Post-It Notes, and I think
this is my favorite stocking gift of all time

We all got YoYo's that light up
(it's the orange UFO near Emily's face)

The Walking Dead wine
(my new favorite TV obsession)

Christmas morning started out early as usual for Linda and me. I think that is my favorite early morning, on Christmas Day. It's so nice to have all the lights turned on and the fireplace going. Sitting there with a cup of coffee with a kitty on my lap...it just doesn't get any better than that. Summer Girl was mostly outside while we had company because she doesn't like to be inside with people who aren't her everyday peeps. She likes to be able to make a speedy getaway. She did come in a few times, slinking around behind the furniture and hiding under the big bed. But for the most part, she was outside.

Christmas Morning

We had so many presents under and around our little tree that it looked kind of ridiculous. But we love our tree that we bought when we lived on 17th street because it has so many memories attached to it. And it is just the right size for the space we have. We just pile the presents around it on the floor and it works for us!

Before

After

The opening of presents was a sort of controlled chaos, with paper and ribbons flying everywhere. Summer Girl even got into the act by checking out what was in her tiny stocking.

I think we all succeeded, once again, to get everyone things that they really wanted, with a few surprises thrown in. My presents were all spot on because almost all of them were centered around the kitchen and cooking, which, as you know, is my absolute favorite thing. We had a fabulous time with our family, and really, that's the most important thing.

The gang

PARTING SHOT

Summer Girl got a catnip-filled slug in her stocking, and it is her new best friend. After she plays with it, she likes to sit on top of it...as if to say, "This is mine!"

Too much cuteness

That's all for this week, my friends. Next week I will continue on with some nature pictures and video that I took during the blog's hiatus. Be sure to tune in!