Vegas Thanksgiving.

Well, it was a high time in the desert. Jennifer and John were excellent hosts for Thanksgiving 2007 and we had a blast. Jennifer surprised us with a trip to Baby's First Image and a chance to see my granddaughter live for the first time. The image is done with a sound wave that captures the image of Samantha in 3D. It was a great deal of fun and she had her eyes open and was sticking her tongue out at David and Daniel and I think she even flipped off David at one point. She is a feisty little girl. Jennifer found out that Samantha is already 6 pounds, 5 ounces and still has another three or four weeks to grow. I think that got Jennifer's attention a little bit.

The turkey was great and the leftovers as great as we ate turkey sandwiches and leftover pie and dressing for two days. Darla and Jennifer made Nanaimo bars for Dad and Shirley's arrival on Saturday and we enjoyed those with pizza and games on Saturday night. I'm glad that Dad and Shirley were able to join us and see Jennifer's apartment. John and Jennifer have made a nice home in Vegas and have a good life. Jennifer, I think, is still a little homesick as she has only a few friends in the area and when John is gone traveling, she is a bit lonely. She has her cats and snake to keep her company and soon Samantha will grace their lives and then the fun will really begin. John and Jennifer have the nursery all set and decorated to the nines in anticipation of little Sam's arrival. The thought is that Sam may come sooner than later as she is getting bigger and pretty active. I think Jennifer is ready to give birth and is really looking forward to being a Mom. John is equally excited and prepared to be a good father. It is heartwarming to see them so committed and focused on being good parents.

We had a good time playing games at John and Jennifer's. We played "Catchphrase", which is an electronic game like "password" played in teams and is exciting and fun. Shirley kept looking at her word and patting her head and saying "Ohmigosh!" before giving her clues. Jennifer was more demonstrative. She would start to give a clue, then look up and say, "nope" and change to another word. We had a lot of laughs. Jennifer bought a game called "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?" and we all proved not to be. The signature question was "What is the product of a horse and a zebra?" a. donkey, b. zorse, c. zebra, d. horse, e. mule. The answer is zorse. Now, how would a fifth grader know that? A zorse? We also played dominoes and the boys, John and Jennifer played a Playstation game of Grand Prix motorcycles. We watched a video, went to bowling alley and didn't bowl (the wait was too long), went to a car show at the Vegas convention center, had lunch at Pei Wei in Vegas, went to breakfast at Aces, a 24 hour bar right outside of Jen and John's apartment complex, and met the gang for breakfast at Bill's Gambling Hall on the strip Sunday morning before we left town.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express near Jennifer's apartment and it proved to be a nice home away from home. We got rates of $103 for the first two nights and $113 for Friday and Saturday. That was for two queen beds and a nice breakfast buffet each morning. The Inn is brand new and very nice, but one of the elevators smells like an animal died in it. i blamed the boys for the smell when we got there Wednesday night, but it was there every time we got in the elevator.

The drive home yesterday was nothing short of brutal as we hit traffic about a half hour out of Vegas in Jean and was in stop and go traffic until we finally got thru the stop light intersection on Highway 58 in the Mojave desert. It took us 8 hours to get from Vegas to Bakersfield, a trip of about 290 miles. It is close to the halfway point from Vegas to Roseville so we were concerned. The trip is about 9.5 hours generally, but the traffic thinned and after dropping Daniel back at his buddy's in Lemoore, we were home by 9:45 PM. Still a twelve hour marathon and if I were to do the trip again, I would stay over Sunday and drive back Monday or Tuesday. Cars were a t a dead stop in the desert in the Mojave and people were going off road in the desert to get around the backup. We saw more cars in Mojave and Tehachapi that were white from the sand of the desert. we could always tell the offroaders. We just hung in there and waited it out. We did drive from 9:30 until almost 5:00 PM before stopping for dinner. We were going to stop sooner, but had the 49er game on radio which went into overtime and the boys wanted to listen to the game rather than eat. We finally stopped in Tulare at Sonic and had dinner.

We were able to meet John's dad and step-mom and his 4 year-old sister, Olivia. Olivia is a precocious little girl and she is very enamored of her older brother. We had a nice visit on Thanksgiving and it was nice to meet John, Sr. My only comment on marriage was when John, Sr and his family left on Thursday night and I told him we'd see him at the wedding next year.

Well, work awaits. I've greeted the gang as they have all wandered in as I was writing this. I have a visit from the Underwriting Manager of our Los Angeles office today, who was in town for the holiday and wanted to come in and see my office. Tomorrow I will take the day out of the office. I have several things to get done for the RGC Christmas party and will then meet Neil, Boyd and Robert for a golf outing at the Auburn Country Club. I have to get my golf fix. It's been ten days. I hope all are well. Be good and keep walking in the shadow of the LORD. Ciao.