Colorado Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas. Ashlie, Jeff’s wife, graduated from University of Colorado on Thursday. We’re all so proud of her. Jeff will do the same in May. Jeff and I inaugurated the season by making swedish potato sausage on the 23rd. On Christmas eve, after church we had our Open House. We fixed a 20 lb, honey-glazed ham, sausage and meatballs. Our guests filled the rest of the table with cookies, chips and desserts. This is one of our favorite things that we do all year.

On Christmas morning we woke to snow falling...actually quite a rarity in Colorado--to have new snow on Christmas day. Liz and I drove up to Longmont to watch our grandson Gentry open his presentsThis is the first Christmas where he understands the concept of opening presents and he loves to open his own and everyone else’s presents. I think his favorite present was his "helmet" a Winnie the Pooh came in.We went over to the Lambs for Don Wilcox's Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, something we have done for many years, and then back to our house for presents with the family and George and Harold. Of course Harold really liked the Christmas dinner scene in "Christmas Story." It was really fun day.

Kacey made short ribs and I threw a prime rib on the grill and made some bean soup with the left over ham bones, Liz made the side dishes and we had a very nice Christmas dinner. Afterwards we played Texas Holdem for a couple of hours (all winnings going to Save Darfur)using a really nice chip set Jeff gave me for Christmas. We called Andy and Natalie in Asia, and using Web cams were able to see each other while we were talking on Skype—so the call was free. This is great technology.

We come to the end of 2007 feeling very grateful for where we are in our lives, aware of God's blessings on each of us. We are in his hand.