What a Difference a Week Makes!

Rain. Canada brand rain. 3 inches in three days and still raining. No golf, no smiles, no sunshine. "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in California anymore!" We even had a little bout of hail this afternoon. We have had periods of intense, sheeting rain and some periods of just rain. We were supposed to get a little break this afternoon, but after some sun trying to peek through the clouds about 1:00PM, the dark clouds rolled back in and the hail was here by 3:00 PM.

Darla and I were invited to a Slavic Christmas by Oksana in my office. We were supposed to go with Anthony and Erin, but they politely backed out yesterday. We asked John and Camille and she was called in to work at the PG&E call center due to the storms. So, Darla and I headed over to Adventure at 2 PM for the event. Oksana had not prepared us for the event at all. It was 100% in Russian (although the invitations were in English, go figure). I have never seen our 3000 capacity church more crowded. There were at least 4000 people jammed into the auditorium and we had to make a cattle run upstairs to the balcony for seats. It was wall to wall people and the ushers were ill prepared for the crowd. They should have turned people away. We finally found seats upstairs about 1:55 PM and the crowd just kept coming. They had people lined up in the aisles and crowded around the doors and lined up the stairs leading to the balcony. The preacher started his sermon in Russian and then a woman joined him on stage and recited more Russian. They announced that we could get earphones that would interpret the message in English, but they must have had about 500 of those and they were snapped up before we got there. We stayed a 1/2 hour and listened to Oksana and the Choir sing three songs all in Russian before getting up to leave. It was weird listening to everything in another language in our own church, but the obvious infractions of the fire code is what prompted us to leave. Besides, I was seated next to a Russian woman who must have dipped herself in fragrant oil before coming to the church. The crowd was beginning to spill into the walkway at the top of the balcony and we couldn't see around people. It was claustrophobic and the crowd was restless and jostling each other. They had a full symphony orchestra and the music was excellent, but we felt like we could breathe again when we made it outside. We were glad that Camille and John didn't make it because it was a nightmare.

We had our annual holiday party at work on Friday. Gail had made reservations at Rudy's Hideaway, a Lobsterhouse in Rancho Cordova. We gathered at 1:30 at the restaurant and Gail had to miss it as she got a call from her husband that her daughter was in a serious car accident in Folsom. It turns out there was a six car pileup on the freeway and her daughter's best friend (who had just got her license on Thursday) ran into the back of her Volkswagen Beetle. It was pelting down rain and her daughter stopped for the accident and the other young lady didn't react fast enough. The airbags in her friend's car deployed and they took her to the hospital. Everyone was fine, but the cars were pretty messed up.

We all had a good time at Rudy's and had lobster, prime rib and steak entrees. Rudy's had set up an ice tea, water and coffee table for the group. Several of the gang went up and ordered beer or wine as I was not requiring people to come back to work. I just had iced tea as I did return to the office. We had our gift exchange done by drawing numbers and being able to steal an item twice. I picked third out of 18 and got a set of colored bowls that were roundly ignored by the group. I had brought a remote control Ford F 150 and it was stolen and then stolen again by Anthony for his two year old son (Yeah, right!). Someone else brought a cubed plastic game with a ball bearing in it that had to be maneuvered through a maze and into position to open the trap door and retrieve a crisp $20 bill. That was gone in the first 8 picks, picked and stolen twice. I ended up trading my bowls to one of the gals in typing for a "rabbit style" corkscrew wine opener. We needed one and Darla would not have allowed those red, blue and yellow mixing bowls into her kitchen. My employees bought me a $125 gift card to Golf Galaxy and I give thanks for such a great staff. I will stop tomorrow and buy each of them a gift card to the Elephant Bar or to BJs.

We are mostly ready for Christmas. The boys both want to go shopping with their Mom after the holiday for clothes, so we have set money aside for that and got them a couple of small things. I bought a couple of things for Darla on Amazon that should be delivered to my office this week and I also ordered the Leapfrog learning system for Samantha and three electronic games. It will be a fun thing for her and Jennifer to play together as Samantha learns to read and recall things.

Sam has been adjusting to Jennifer being back at work. Both Michael and Jennifer started work, training on Wednesday and Thursday and starting the job on Friday. They worked all weekend and will have Wednesday and Thursday off. I, of course, set up for them to fly in Friday the 7th and home on Tuesday the 11th. With her schedule she would have to miss a week of work. Right now to change the flight to Sunday to Thursday would cost us $240. I'm continuing to look to see if we can make some changes. At worst, I'll have her fly in Sunday and at least she can work Friday and Saturday. It would cost me $80 plus taxes to make that change. She had been out of work so long when we set it up and I assumed if she got a job it would be M-F. It will be nice for Sam as Jennifer can spend every Wed-Thursday with her and John can spend Sat-Sun.

David flies home from Rome tomorrow and his Dad is picking him up in San Francisco. He'll have Tuesday to relax and get over his jet lag and Wednesday he has major dental surgery. They will pull two baby teeth on either side of his jaw and implant bone posts that will be later used for implanting his permanent implants. They aren't crowns as he doesn't have any permanent teeth to attach them to. The posts are being drilled into his jaw . He will be out of commission for about two weeks and will have to watch us eat prime rib on Saturday as he has a shake or something.

Well, that is the news to the moment. It was definitely a quiet weekend. We slept alot and relaxed the rest of the time as it was UGLY outside. Hope you are all well and looking forward to the celebration of Jesus' birth. Ciao.