A Special Merry Christmas to Brett In Afghanistan

Dear Brett,

Merry Christmas!!  It was so good to talk to you just a bit ago.   It's funny that it's already Christmas there but still early in the evening of Christmas Eve here.  Dad & I were just about ready to sit down to dinner when you called.  But it was far better receiving your call than eating :o)  I had a hard time eating for the huge lump in my throat and for the tears!!  Dad & I miss you sooooo much.  I know we always tell you that but it's so true.  It's great that you've got almost five months of your time done!  I'm sure time goes so slow for you being away from your family.  But when you're busy hopefully time passes a little faster for you.  Thank you for the many, many sacrifices you're making to serve our country.  Nobody knows what it's like except for those who go through it!!  You've been on my mind a lot lately and will continue to be until you're back in the USA.  We're praying that God will keep His hand on you and protect you and give you good health and strength.  Keep your chin up, buddy!!  We love you so much and miss you.

Merry Christmas!!

Mom & Dad 

Merry Christmas From Our House To Yours ~ 2010

I took this pictures about two weeks ago.  It was so close to being dark outside, but looking at these you'd never know it :o)

 We have this white fence way around our yard and it's so pretty with the garland, white lights and red bows!!

 This is how they decorate the palm trees!  They are so pretty!!

I hoping that we'll be able to go out maybe tomorrow evening to look at the lights around our area.  The people go all out here on the Island with decorating!  Just beautiful!!

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And we want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year!  Be thankful this Christmas for good health and remember those who may have lost a family member or close friend this year!  We've got so much to be thankful for but we take it for granted!!

Christmas Time At Our House

One of my sister's told me that she wanted to see pictures of my tree, etc.  So, here goes!!

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This is my Nativity Scene that was my Mother's.  I remember she got this when I was pretty young.

I really love it and it means a lot to me being it was hers!!

 Next year, I'll be adding another piece of garland so it goes down the sides of the doors farther

 My china cabinet with poinsettia lights on the top

 My little four foot tree

 I like how this picture turned out

 The caroler's were also my Mother's

 Something to remind me of what the weather is like up north :o)

 An angel

 We moved my little display case in the entry area so the Christmas tree could go in front of the living room window.

 The beautiful iridescent angel tree top that Dennis got me

 My pretty tree

 We now have lots of gifts under the tree from school kids and friends at Church.  I guess I should've taken another picture with the gifts :o)  We're saving them to open Christmas morning as we didn't buy anything for each other here.  Our gifts are waiting for us in the States!!

 I love this picture with the tree lights reflecting on the ceramic tile floor

 Some very special ornaments!!  My sister, Charlotte, gave these to us last year for Christmas after we found we were leaving Ohio and moving to the Caribbean.

 They are so pretty a glistening!  Someone told us one of the stores here sell something similar to mine.  So, if I remember next year when the decorations are being put out in the stores here I want to go looking to see if I can find some more!!

Church Choir Christmas Cantata

Our Church Choir performed their Christmas Cantata on December 12th.

They did an awesome job!

Lloyd is a senior in our high school and was the narrator of the cantata

The choir

 Dennis giving the director a small token of appreciation

 Bro. Laten our Assistant Pastor who has been very ill but was able to be out to Church again

The tree in our Church.  I think it needs a little more decoration but.....  It was supposed to be a 12' tree, but when it was delivered it was far from that size!  It was still pretty.

The Parade of Lights

The Parade of Lights

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Looking across the little bay area

 The following are pictures I took of some of the boats that were decorated so beautifully!  I know they turned out blurry.  For some reason,  I just couldn't find a good setting plus we were a little ways from them and they were moving when I snapped the pictures.

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This was Santa's sleigh pulled by a Skidoo.  'Ole Santa was standing on the front of the sleigh whirling a lighted whip in the air.  It was really neat.  I think they won a prize!

 This is a package (what you can see of it)

 This boat was decorated with huge candycanes

 This was a tree

 And a blue tree.  I loved how it reflected in the water!

 This was on a giant boat.  It was so pretty with all the lights!!

 When the parade of boats was over we left thinking that was it for the night.  Were we ever surprised when we saw the fireworks starting to go up into the sky!  They were awesome!!

What a great fun filled evening!!

Back to Blogging

Wow!  I can't  believe it's almost a month since I posted anything on here!!  So much to do and so little time is my favorite saying :o)  Plus my laptop is on the blink AGAIN, so I downloaded my pictures (many, many, many) on this our desktop.  I don't hardly know where to start but being it's Christmas time in the city I guess that's the best place.  We had sooooooo many different activities to attend for our school and Church this month and I tried to capture most of it with the camera.  I'll probably do several post on these things!!  Here's just a sampling.

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On December 4th, we went to a little town all it's own called Caymana Bay.  There are shops, restaurants, businesses, etc. there.  But on this particular evening they had what is known as The Parade of Lights.    I'll be posting more about that later.  This little village/town was so beautifully decorated.

This is looking down the main walkway

 Look at those BIG balls.  How about that snowman :o)

 There's a huge Christmas tree ahead

 It was a mass of people

 More pretty things

 There was a huge stage area here were they had some singers and a big choir from a local Church perform later in the evening

 And yes, it snows in Cayman!!  It was awesome to be in the snow and enjoying the 70 - 80 temps!!

 We ran into Bradley ~ a little boy from school

 One of the many fountain areas

Silent Monks

If you've never saw this before it is awesome!!

Interrupted Sleep

I wish I could go back to sleep!!!  About an hour and a half ago I was sound asleep when all at once the door bell began ringing. When I looked at the clock it was only a few minutes after two.  I shook myself and it really didn't take to awful much to get out of bed.  It was then that it dawned on me that Dennis wasn't in our bed.  He apparently was having a hard time going to sleep and so instead of keeping me awake he went into another bedroom and was sound asleep there.  I went very cautiously out of our bedroom looking toward the front door to see if I could see anyone.  From our bedroom you can see straight out to our front door!  Believe me, I wasn't moving around very slow either, but all the while the door bell continued to ring and our Coco was viciously barking outside! I got to Dennis and he was still sound asleep never hearing the clanging of the door bell!  I went over to the side of the bed where he was laying and started saying, "Dennis, someone is ringing the door bell!!"  After saying me this a few times and him trying to shake the sleep out of his eyes, he said what?  I told him again and he wanted his cell phone to call another guy to come around to meet him on the front porch.  At that time of the night/morning you just don't know.  He quickly got dressed and told me to call 911 if anything happened when he got outside.  So, I followed him to the door thinking he's not going out there alone!  When he opened the door I heard him say, "What's going on, guys?"  I finally got to see for myself that there were three policemen walking out there and they along with Dennis and Keith were heading over to the Church.  The police were driving around just doing their regular routine check making sure everything was okay in the neighborhood.  When of those guys attend our Church and when they drove by he noticed all the lights on in the Sanctuary and said they aren't supposed to be on.  They stopped to check things out and here the doors were unlocked!!  They searched the Church and in the High School as it was also unlocked.  Nothing was missing as far as they could tell.  Needless to say, it was very unnerving in the middle of your sleep to be awakened by the door bell and not knowing who or what you'd fine when you answered the door.   You see, not to many years ago, someone broke into the Church and the offices.  From what I understand, quite a few things were stolen!!  Thank you, Jesus, for keeping your hand over our Church and sending along the police (Jayse especially) to see it was lit up at the time of the night and stopping to check it out!!  Well, I guess I'll try to go back to bed and sleep a little before getting up to go to work!

Sweet Dreams!!

My To Do List For This Weekend

Yesterday soon after I finished at the office, we went to visit a family whose husband/father dropped over dead a massive heart attack last Friday in Barbados.  We were probably there for an hour or so and then left to go have dinner.  It was kind of nice being that we haven't ate out all week!  After that we came home.  I was sooooo tired!!  So, I thought I'd get my book I'm reading and sit in the recliner in the living room to rest and read for a while.  Haha!!  After reading a few pages, my eyes became very heavy.  Instead of going back to bed I laid the book down on the floor and fell asleep.  It was ridiculous as I sat there and slept almost two hours.  When I woke up it was almost 9:30!!  So, I got up and then went to bed.  I was all settled getting ready to snooze away and Dennis came to bed.  At one point, he rolled over and hit me square in the face and didn't even know it!!  Then I was wide awake.  So, around 12:30 am, I got out of bed and moseyed around for a while doing a few things.  I then took my book and went to another bedroom and laid down.  I read until almost 2:30 and slept for about 4 hours.  The moral of that story is don't take a pre~bedtime nap!!  But as I was laying in bed trying to go back to sleep after getting socked in the face (it wasn't that hard but he still got me in the forehead) I was thinking of all those things I wanted to do this weekend!  

Here is a list of things accomplished and those still to be accomplished:

*change the sheets on our bed, dusted and vacuumed the master bedroom

*laid some new rugs I recently got on the clean floor (pictures to come later of those)

*cleaned the master bathroom

*laid some new rugs I recently got on the clean floor in the bathroom

*sorted my greeting cards I have in a drawer in one of the spare bedrooms (lots of cards)

*cleaned spare bedroom #1 as we're getting company on Wednesday for almost 1 week

*cleaned the guest bathroom

*vacuumed the hallway

*do lots and lots of laundry (I did two loads in the middle of the night while I was up :o)

*did more laundry

*did more laundry ~ I had a small mountain of laundry to get caught up on

*did I say I did some laundry?

*dusted my living room

*dusted my dining room

*vacuumed my parlor (as one of my sister's call it)

*dusted my parlor

*dusted my entry way area

*my dear husband asked me to bake something, so I made an apple crisp (did that ever smell good as it was baking!)

*wrote some thank~you cards

*answered the phone several times (I hate getting interrupted for nothing when I'm busy unless it's family)

*cleaned my laundry room

*went outside and played with my poochie after I fed & watered him

*cooked supper (we were going to run out to get fast food but I changed my mind)

*washed the dishes
*vacuumed my living room
*vacuumed my dining room
*finished signing my Christmas cards to be sent to family & friends in the States
*started writing my Christmas letter
*ironed my pretty new fall colored tablecloth that I bought in the States last week
*made my Thanksgiving menu to share with the teachers tomorrow when we go back to work
*washed the tile in the entry way area

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Things I have to do:

*need to do some ironing

*need to wash my kitchen floor (will do the night before my company comes)

*you probably think I'm a little crazy, but I've got to finish my Christmas letter ready to put in my Christmas cards that will be sent

*iron a pretty new shower curtain to put up in the master bathroom

*start practicing music that I was just given today for the Church kids Christmas Program.  I wanted to say no, but all the music teachers will be gone to their homes for the holidays when the kids do their program :o(

And so you see     .     .     .     .     .

AND THE LIST GOES ON AND ON!

The nice thing is that Monday is a holiday for us, so we don't have school which means the office will be closed.  Did I hear some say "HALLELUJAH"?  Oops, that was me you heard there :o)  So, I worked hard today hoping to enjoy my day off a little bit.

Have You Thanked A Veteran Today?

 Did you remember to thank a veteran today?  I'm sure there's one near you!!  Don't forget to honor them with just a few kind words!!

 I love this picture of this warrior veteran with his dear friend

 I'd like to thank my dear son, Brett, for presently serving our great country and for fighting for our freedom!!  He is in Afghanistan right now sacrificing the comforts of life and family.  Oh, how I miss you Brett and can't wait until you get home.  This is his third and hopefully final deployment away from his family!!  Keep safe, Brett, and we love you!!

Then there's my oldest brother, Jim, who served our country in the United States Army.  He spent time over in Vietnam during the war.  I remember when I was very young going along with my family to take Jim to the airport when he was getting ready to deploy to Vietnam.  Now as my son is over sea's I know what my Mother was going through!  Jim, thank you, thank you for all the time you served our great country!!  I love you and you are the bestest of the best :o)

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I've had many uncles and cousins who've served in the Military!  One of my Daddy's brother's was killed in World War II (I think that was when it was).  My father-in-law also served in the U.S. Army.  We don't know what these men and women faced and those who are serving today continue to face!  They are so, so very courageous and I thank you from the bottom of my heart!!!