is where I'm going to start the Christmas report. Its starts out just loaded with ornaments mostly old ones from the boys. Every time they made an ornament in school while growing up it took on a special place on the tree and along with these ornaments there are things from Karen and my prom along with lots of memorabilia from vacations and special times for our family and this is basically how it looked.



Now when our grand kids were very small and we would set with them on New Years we needed something to keep them busy after all the books had been read and cookies were made and cartoons watched so we more or less invented the New Years tree. Well the kids are know longer small and very often not here on New Years so we started to do the New Years tree on Christmas Day after everyone opened presents. This is what it looked like this year.



We had a great Christmas Day with all our family here along with my Mother and her sister my Aunt Franie and we had a good meal and great company. We had a birthday Cake for the Baby Jesus and we sang happy birthday and generally a festive and spiritual day.
We are a very diverse group but when we get together we put everything aside and enjoy the moment. Family is so important I believe we should all try and do more together and record all the story's and memories. Its to bad that generations from now some of the story's will be forgotten. All the more reason for family's to get together more often.

Ok thats all for now some pictures of the puppy , are in our future.

Great day everyone and happy New Year.
s

So in keeping with what we usually do here's a picture from Karen's past. I have to say she is the glue to this family if any of you didn't already know that. She is a tireless grandmother mother and wife and we love her as she loves us.



The holidays have been full of happening's and pictures but today we celebrate with one picture. The rest will come in the following days and weeks.
Happy birthday Babe
great day everyone else
s

morning got all the shopping done....I think I bumped into every shopping cart inside Wal-Mart. Now to the task of wrapping...with Jim to help us wrap, we should get done in no time at all. It's really going to be great having everyone together, the last time was at our vacation at Myrtle Beach in June. I hope you all have a great Christmas.
If Jim were writing this it would end with
I Can only Do what I Can Do...
But I'm just going to say...
Positive Attitude Changes Everything.
Karen

in Boston has taken one line from my blog and posted it as a quote on his blog. Well the quote is absolutely correct but let me explain.
Seth is very accomplished with electronics and web design and he designed Jim's and my blog. Whenever we have a problem an e-mail will most often get a reply with the answer to that problem. When naming our GPS devise my first thought was to name it Seth, because it answers most questions and keeps us on the right path, but as I stated in the blog I felt it would be confusing.
Now our friend has taken to using snippets from our blog along with Billy's and it's fun so I thought I might furnish a few snippets from his blog.


"no one ever accused me of being the brightest"

"god I hope I don't blow my condo up" kinda way ;)"

"So I used my, um, "flaming" personality"

"So I trotted downstairs"

"We both went back down and neither of us could see anything"

"where the heck is the freakin' pilot?"

Aren't these fun???? So to Seth we wish you a Happy and safe Christmas and Holiday and we hope to see you in the new year some time.
great day everyone
s

Delivered the retouching to Katie in Chesterfield, visited with Rob the hearing guy and stopped at Busch Wildlife on the way home. I found the pine grove back. For those of you who are not familiar with this area its a thousand plus acres of virtual wilderness with 34 lakes and many many roads and if your not careful you find your self going in circles. So I spent a little time at the pine grove one of my favorite places in the world and heres a picture. The snow is still holding on to little spots on the trees and since its dense shade this is the last place where it melts.



After a short walk here I drove to lake 33 the largest of the 34 lakes here and followed a king fisher or egret whatever you wish to call them. Its a hoot working the area and getting close enough to see their eyes. I took twenty or so images and allot of them were in flight. I may post some of them later this week, but for now just these last two.




Jim is slowly acclimating to being home and gaining strength as each day passes.
A nice visit with Claire and Don and the day is done.
All is well with us.
great day everyone
s