The last flight of 2023

 

James came up today and took down the Christmas lights for us.  James and I have a good time working together.  The extension cord was the last thing on that job.

Then we went over to Steve and Dianne's so James could pick up a card they had for him.  It turned out they had mailed it already but we had a great visit with them.

At about 3:30 I went out and put in my last flight of 2023 with the helicopter.  I thought about making one with a plane but it was too cold out.

Earlier in the week I got the battery mounting figured out on the Elipstick.  Then I was able to finish covering the front of the fuselage and the battery hatch.  We are having our normal laid back New Years at home listening to fireworks.

Christmas Day, Tons of great food.

 We went to Mik and Michelle's for our traditional Christmas Day dinner.  As usual Mik had made an awesome prime rib on the Trager.

James is filling up the veggie tray and getting things organized.

Vera is cutting up the candy Michelle had made and arranging it on the tray.

Vera K makes the gravy every year.  I just wandered around sampling things and taking pictures.

The table was really filled with food.

Right after I told James I had done my Christmas Eve blog, he sat down and checked it.

I didn't notice that Michelle's sweater had an airplane theme until she pointed it out to me.

Mik has a great time with Jacob and Jordon.

Jacob got a radio controlled dinosaur for Christmas.  It is pretty fast on a smooth floor but it doesn't like carpet. 

By the time I got a picture of Jordon with it, the batteries were dead.

Then it was family picture time.  Here is James, Mik and Michelle with their tree in the background.

Josh, Jacob, Debbie and Jordon who is maybe showing off his two missing teeth.

This is Josh's Brother Gabe and their mother Natalie.

My girls, Debbie, Vera, Michelle and Beverly.

Vera, Michelle and Bev, it was nice to get a picture of them.

They got me in there for one picture.

On the right is Mik's cousin Jim Karnofski, his wife Vera and their friend John from Ilwaco.  John came with them last year also. I had a nice visit with him about airplanes.  Michelle was taking a picture of them at the same time and I got her phone in my picture.  It was a great day that both Vera and I enjoyed very much.

Christmas Eve #2

 

After leaving Cale and Ericka's I stopped in at Gabe and Des's to wish them a Merry Christmas.  They had lots of good looking food also so I had to sample it and I am happy to report it was great!  I hadn't been there long when Dianne came up and told me to take a number.  I told her I hadn't brought any gift and she told me to take a number it had all been taken care of.  It turned out she had bought a selection of presents and provided them for a gift exchange.  I finally took a number and got #1.  The present I choose ended up being a Target $25 gift card and a scented candle.  This picture is of Colin as he came up to pick out his gift, he choose the Home Depot bucket which had car washing items in it.  I don't think anyone stole it from him.

Emmy is opening the gift she selected.  It was fun to watch, my selections got stolen several times and I ended up with a nice pair of Thinsulated gloves and impact socket adapters I stole from Rielee.  It turned out to be a great evening.

12-28-2023 Update: I also got three scratch off tickets with the gloves and adapters, today I took them into Safeway and I ended up winning $7.

Christmas Eve #1

 

My Christmas Eve started with a visit to Cale and Ericka's for the annual Christmas party.

There was lots of good food and some awesome desserts.

Cathy was getting pictures of all the families so she had Emmy take this picture of my sisters Cathy, Laury and I.

James and Michelle were there also.

Kennedy was throwing her toy on the floor and Tor was catching it.  She got pretty quick at throwing it and he missed catching a few.

Josie ran right up to Santa when he arrived and gave him a big hug.

They had quite a long talk before she got her present.

Peter's grandson was not having anything to do with Santa.

Hattie looked happy on Santa's lap.

Rory slept through the whole thing.

Kennedy wasn't too thrilled with Santa.

She warmed up to him when he gave her a candy cane.

She was a happy kid after that.

Cathy is watching Tor, Bridget and Jillian open their presents.  I didn't get a good picture of any of them on Santa's lap.

I didn't notice that Kennedy was standing as she watched Josie open her present until I did the blog.

I left when they got ready to do the White Elephant gift exchange because we have not done that for several years.

Christmas Lights

 Vera and I went for a ride tonight, we picked up dinner at Burger King and then headed to Castle Rock to eat where I could take pictures of the Christmas lights.

We ate in the same place as last time but I had my new Nikon that I wanted to try on Christmas lights.  The moon peeking through the clouds added to this picture.

A lot of the houses had the blow up figures but I don't like them as well as lights.

Even with the blowup figures I liked this place.

This was my favorite, it was up on the hill behind the bakery on a dead end street that I had to back out of.

On the way home I took this picture of Bob and Cathy's lights.  There were not as many as other years but it still looked great.

After we got home I wanted to try the new camera some more so I took this picture of Steve and Dianne's lights.

Then I walked up the driveway to take a picture of David and Laury's lights.

By now my knee was hurting, my left leg has gotten a lot weaker with my problems with the toe.  I couldn't get a clear shot of Gabe and Des's without walking up their driveway so I took this picture with the zoom.

It was a slow trip back home so I took a break and took another picture of the shop from a different angle than the last one.

Of course I had to try the new camera on the house also.  I think after Christmas I am going to start exercising the left leg on the weight machine and getting on the treadmill every day.

Michelle, James, Hattie and Fog

 12-19-2023

We had a nice visit with James today, I had a great time showing him some of the old pictures I have been scanning into the computer.  Michelle had stopped by yesterday and I forgot to take a picture.  We had a great time getting all caught up with what she had been doing.

12-20-2023

My Happy Wednesday picture from Laury.  Hattie is sure a cutie.  Today was really unusual, we had really dense fog that didn't lift all day.