Here is another photo from our breakfast yesterday.
We finished the day watching a couple of close football games and then we all went to themovies. We saw "Four Christmases" with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. It was about two dysfunctional families at Christmas. The story wove in the theme of the importance of honesty and being truthful and did it in a humorous way.
When we got home we chatted awhile and then watched the Christmas episode of "Psyche" and called it a night.
Thanksgiving Day went well. I picked up my mom at her house and brought her to our place. She and Bonz did well together. She even let him sit on her lap briefly in the basement on the lazyboy chair. Kerri and Pat and Don and Veronica joined us for the dinner. Everything was superb and the Amish Turkey pictured here was awesome! We sure laughed a lot telling funny stories of family events.
Later, Jan called and talked with mom and later me. She had us look up Luke's Drexel a capella choir on You Tube so we could vote for him and so we all could see his group singing.
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On Black Friday we went to the Freedom Square restaurant for breakfast. I had coupons for each of our meals so that made it nice. Then I took my mom back to Monongahela and we stopped to give the pharmacy her prescriptions to be certain she gets what she needs for the next month. She's to pick them up tomorrow. We also checked out a concern she had about gas company right-of -way work above her property. Everything looked fine. We found one of the property markers to indicate her property line. She was concerned that some of the work up there might cause trees to roll down onto her property. Everything looked fine to us. Then Pat and I drove back to Cranberry and re-connected with Dee and Kerri at Babies R'Us. Then we had lunch at Primanti Bros. Restaurant and watched the Pitt defeat West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl. It was a close game with a nail-biting finish.
On Wednesday while Dee was at work, I picked up the Amish Turkey and eggnog before the store got busy and then went to the Rotary meeting. It was Turkey Raffle day. Everyone brought in wrapped gifts to be raffled off. And there were 5 turkeys as part of the raffle. The tickets cost $20 for 10 tickets. Some people brought several gifts to be raffled off. All proceeds went to the Lighthouse Agency. Some of the wrapped gifts were gag gifts and others were nice - like bottles of wine, boxes of candy, etc. I won a large box of mixed nuts with a nice bow.
What amazed me about the whole thing is that the prizes cost most people next to nothing, and then we all chipped in $20 to play the raffle game. Some people bought more tickets because it was for charity. Anyway, when all was said and done, we raised about $1,200 for the Lighthouse. And had fun doing it. Amazing!
Later I took Bonz to have his claws trimmed and ground just to be sure he didn't accidentally scratch anyone tomorrow. The I hung the garland on the staircase and went to get a wireless remote switch set that can turn lights off and on without having to go and unplug them. It does up to three outlets. During the evening Dee tweaked the garlands and lights and we discussed where we might put the tree. But that's for another day.
Yesterday I went to the men's Bible Study at church - our topic was the transfer of power from David to Solomon and Solomon's reign as king. We noted that David told Solomon to "be a man". this led us to a discussion of what it meant then to be a man and what it may mean today. We shared about defining moments when we felt we asserted ourselves as adult males in relationship to our fathers. Good conversation.
Afterward we all helped put up the two Christmas trees at the church. One was a 12 foot tree and the other was about 5 feet tall and had a ball on the bottom of roots and soil wrapped in burlap for later planting on the church grounds. The tall tree is in the fellowship and greeting area and the smaller one is in the sanctuary next to the pulpit. With all the guys helping to put the tree up (we used some scaffolding and they had a hook in the ceiling to steady it if for any reason it should tip to the side.)The congregation will be decorating them on Saturday morning at an "Eat and Trim Breakfast".
Afterward, Earl took me home and I showed him the dining room table leaf he made for me 25 years ago. He'd forgotten all about it. It still looks like the day he created it. It's a perfect match. We put it in the table in preparation for Thanksgiving Dinner. Later I put some finishing touches on the creche scene in the basement. The figures were made by my mom (I think) when she took a ceramics class many years ago. She gave us the figures on Christmas and we've used them before. The little shelf in the basement is a perfect place for it and we see it every night when we're reading the paper or watching television.
After Earl left, I sent the recordings of our Bogmeister chorus to the director so she could send them to the people who need them. I was glad the microphone worked as well as it did. We'll tweak it some for future recordings, but it was a good start.
In the evening Dee and I went to the worship service and "pie social" afterward at the church. There were about 75 people there. It was a nice event. We met some new people and got to build on relationships we've begun there. And the tree was still standing from our morning efforts at putting it up.
After we got home, we built the "lighted village scene" on top of the fireplace that divides our living room from the dining room. I'll put a photo of it on the blog tomorrow. Dee arranged the village and I was the gopher who handed the items when she needed them. It really looks nice. I think I'll get a remote switch so I can turn it on and off without having to plug it in each time I want to light it up. (I could use one for the rope lights on the deck too.)
Our next decorating project will be the garlands for the staircase banisters. The"garland grabbers came from QVC and they seem to fit the banisters just fine. More to come...
Yesterday while Dee was working I did the various errands on our list. Signed Bonz up for the Brickyard Dog Kennel in advance of our Christmas trip to be with Kerri and Patrick. (I was surprised how many places were already completely booked up for that holiday week.) Dee has a co-worker who uses Brickyard Kennels and she said it's clean and her dog really likes it.
I picked up some snow for the fireplace village, did the banking and so on. Then when Dee got home we had a very quick dinner (sandwiches) together. I had to go to Barbershop practice early to set up my new microphone and old laptop so we could record the practice session songs. Our director wants to use the recorded songs to make part dominant voice overs for the new people so they can learn their parts quicker. The recordings turned out pretty good for our first try at it. I had invited a new guy at church to come to Barbershop practice and he came! He likes to sing, even though he can't read music, and he did just fine with the help of others in the group. I hope he comes again.
Later, when I got home, Dee and I took advantage of our hot tub and the relatively warm evening ( 40 degrees) before the snows came. Ahhhhh.
Sunday we went to church and attended the Sunday school classes prior to worship. I continue to be amazed to the number of children and youth attending each week. It's nice to see the various age groups there. After worship I practiced with a mixed quartet for a little since we are scheduled to sing on Dec. 14 for worship. They want to practice on Monday nights but that doesn't work for me since I already am committed to Bogmeister practice. So we got together right after worship to have our first practice. It went well.
Then, we went to lunch with Earl and Marilyn at Eat'n Park. It's always a pleasure to have lunch with them. Earl indicated they decided to join the church and plan to let the pastor know this week. That's nice.
Afterward we headed home and pretty much stayed inside the rest of the day. Dee found out that the "snow" blanket we bought for her village is too puffy and not like what she needs or thought it was. I worked on the creche background with the blue poster board and gold stars. I still have to figure a way to hang the ceramic angel. IO tried "invisible thread", but it's hard to see and tie and the angel flips right out of it. Hummmm. I'll figure it out.
We watched a little football and then a movie called "Holiday in Handcuffs". With Mario Lopez. A cute story that had issues of forgiveness, following your heart, and reconciliation themes at the end.
I counted how many times we got in and out of the car yesterday and it was more than 8 times. Whew! Our day began with breakfast at home. Dee made some fantastic omlettes with ham, cheese and eggs. Then we went to the craft show at the Mars High School. They had so many vendors that they had to use both the HS and the Intermediate school (via shuttle buses). There must have been 200 vendors. Our friend Carlo Jean Keffer had a booth with very nice items she'd crocheted. With lots of homemade items and food as well. It was fun walking around and looking at ways people spend their time to make things to sell as decorations or jewelry for others to use. There must have been thousands of people there! But it was fun.
Next, we went to the Pine Richland HS for the "empty bowl" fundraiser sponsored by Rotaract, the Rotary kids in HS. The ceramics department made pretty bowls they sold for soup and you could eat all the soup you wanted. They had about 10 different kinds of soup with bread and dessert and beverage. The funds raised go to support the Lighthouse Food Bank. While we were there a couple of the kids came over to say hi as they recognized me from other Rotary events. That was nice. Last year they made about $2,400.
After that we went to check out a kennel in Mars where we plan to leave Bonz during Christmas week. It was nice and clean and closer than the other kennel we used. Next on our list was Costco to pick up a couple of items we were out of. It's always fun to go there. And the lines move along very quickly, even on Saturday. After that it was off to Joann Fabrics to pick up items to complete our creche display and also the village display Dee is putting on the fireplace mantel. Then, off to Loafers to get a free loaf of fresh baked bread, and Lowe's to get some potting soil a pot for Dee's orchid plant.
Then to Verizon to get Dee a new phone and renew her contract for 2 years. She also picked up her work schedule for next week. It's Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday then she's off the rest of the week. I went to Giant Eagle to return our movie.
Whew! We got a lot done. And learned that the best time to shop is during the week as Christmas gets closer. Since Saturdays are already crazy out there.
We finished the day by watching some Penn State and Pitt football as well as a couple of things she'd recorded. It was good to see Penn State win and qualify for the Rose Bowl Game!
