Christmas is Coming!

 

It is the calm before the storm. No, that's wrong, in truth the storm rolled in yesterday and we have wind, rain and more rain. This is one of the wettest years that I can remember. Our normal rainfall Jul 1 to date is 6 inches and we have received 10.24 inches to date. I know Dad and Shirley and folks in Seattle would laugh at us, but it does interfere with our golfing here in Northern California.

 

You can see from the picture above that Jennifer is here with us. Her job started last Monday and her boyfriend left for Virginia on Friday. She drove up Friday night and will be here until Wednesday morning, celebrating Christmas with us. She drove up to Yuba City today and had brunch with Jason, her friend that still comes up to Lake Almanor with us. Tomorrow she will meet Diane's other ex-husband, Bill, and her friend, Sarah, for lunch in Folsom. She is in the process of walking all of the sites that she will be working the next few weeks and has been on her computer since she arrived making notes and preparing for walking the sites with her Manager. Jennifer will then need to make arrangements to order materials and equipment for the construction job. She will work Wednesday and Thursday and then heads to Vegas Friday through Monday to hang out with Samantha. We Skyped with Sam on Friday and sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She was in a great mood and showed us some presents that she had. Jennifer will celebrate Sam's birthday and Christmas next weekend. Sam is with John and his family in Southern California for Christmas. Sam is 5 now and will start Kindergarten next Fall.

 

The other picture is of Darla's cousin, Brenda and her husband, Mark and daughter, Meghan. They were in town to celebrate Christmas with Mark's family and drove out to Roseville and had dinner with us at Sammy Hagar's restaurant downtown. It was a nice visit. They live in San Jose and we need to get out there to see them and Bob and Vicki.

 

We will have a houseful on Christmas Day with Darla's parents, Jennifer, David, Daniel and Darla's sister, husband and nephew, Luke. We are serving a Prime Rib (7 rib) and all of the trimmings. The boys will be over tomorrow night and we will open presents. We will also go to Christmas Eve service at church and sing Christmas carols and enjoy the Christmas sermon. We were going to go to service on Saturday night, but cancelled when Brenda was able to come by.

 

We had our Christmas party for work on Thursday at Sammy Hagar's restaurant in Roseville. The manager over at Sammy's was great and set up a deal for us to have a limited menu and add sodas and coffee and tea for an extra $2.50 and give each person a drink ticket for another $5.00. We were able to feed 22 of us for just a little over $400 with tax and tip included. We did our gift exchange where we draw numbers and you can steal. I was the first person to choose and at various times during the afternoon had a wine pack, a vodka pack, a set of binoculars, and a blanket. All of those were stolen from me and I ended up with a pizza maker. Darla took one look at it when I got home and said it was a space waster. I have one of my guys, a 23 year old, that really wanted it, so I will bring it to him on Wednesday. Our newest employee, Dylan, who will type policies for me and back up on Underwriting teams, was invited and will start for me on January 2nd. His first day, he ended up with a Grey Goose gift pack and a $50 gift card for Chicago Fire pizza.Not a bad first day. I bought $50 gift cards for everyone and set those up on a table and had everyone pick one as their number came up. The gift cards could be stolen as well and it was an amusing free for all as gifts and gift cards were taken at will. Each gift or card could be stolen twice and then were locked. I had about four of each card, so it was an interesting match. Darla and I ended up with both a gift card for Suede Blue, an upscale Roseville restaurant, and one for McCormick and Schmick's steakhouse.

 

Our office is doing great again in December and we are really on a roll at the end of the year. As of Friday, we were already 35% up over December of 2011. We are getting some good attention in Home Office for our recent run of success. Things are really going great as we wind up the year. I finished my budget on Friday and have figured in a 13% increase over 2012, which will be a record year for my office. I am a blessed man.

 

Well, that is it. I will be back at the keyboard next weekend for the last blog entry of the year. Darla and I will also be hosting a year end party for friends on Saturday night and we will fix another prime rib. New Years eve we have been invited to a party at Freida and Charlie's house in Granite Bay.We will have the same gang over on Saturday that we went to dinner with last week. It is basically the crew that we went to San Francisco with and John and Camille. We have invited Bob and Vickie from San Jose to join us, but don't really expect them. We invited them to stay in our extra bedroom. It would be nice if they could make it. Have a tremendous Christmas Day and God bless all of my family and friends. Ciao.