I hope you had a very Merry Christmas! I tried to pace myself and did pretty well. I made a centerpiece for the table on the 23rd that came out better than I expected. My family came down as well as Greg's mom, so we had 9 around our 8-seat table. We had great munchies before our early dinner and Greg made prime rib and ham while I made rolls, potato salad, baked potatoes, and peas. A warm dutch apple pie with vanilla bean ice cream and a pumpkin pie with whipped creme rounded out the menu. Yum!
We emptied our remodel bank account by purchasing our son's coveted item. He waited 6 months for this one thing from the remodel. He and I did our research and went shopping. We ordered a Sony Bravia 46" LCD flat screen TV and it arrived the Friday before Christmas. We updated our cable package to include HD and digital and a few more channels, but we might switch to Direct TV because it's cheaper and has more and better channels. Why didn't we do that in the first place? No clue.
Since my mom got to finally see the house, I'm sharing some pictures. We are still at the 'before decorating' phase. I want to do some lettering on the walls and add an entry table, entertainment center, pictures on the walls, candles, etc. It will be fun to find the time to shop.
Today we get our new kitty. The kids went to their dad's for Christmas Eve as usual. He and his wife and just put down their cat as well. Her sister wanted to replace their cat so she brought two kittens from their ranch as a surprise Christmas gift to her. She didn't think she was ready to replace the cat so soon, but one of the kittens really took to Kristen. It is 8 weeks old, has all it's shots, comes with a cat box, litter, and food. It's black with white tips on its feet, and white tummy,and a white upside-down heart on it's face. They're bringing it to us at 2:00 today. Kristen had found a cat on the Internet called Zenith that she wanted, but Zenith lives in Selma, a few hours away. Mark and I didn't like the name Zenith. Everyone liked the name Kira so she will be named Kira Zenith. K-Z for short. (K-Z kitty!) Can't wait.
It's been a very busy weekend. Leadership training yesterday, which ended up being a 3 hour board game because one member couldn't make it due to illness, Mark's friend Andrew coming for dinner to show us pictures of his first semester at Montana Wilderness Bible School, and friends from church coming over for lunch to hear about what we're doing with the church plant. Sure makes you keep your house clean!
We're planning our advance for our leadership team. (Advance, not retreat, because Greg doesn't like the term 'retreat'.) We're going through my favorite book of all time by Erwin McManus and might do my second favorite book of all time by him as well. At the advance we'll plan the calendar year, our pre-launches, and seek God.
Well, I better wash the windows. The dogs had a field day on Christmas with the mud and seeing my mom's two little Bichon Frises inside.
Blessings this sunny, clear, beautiful Sunday!
