Lierly Christmas Celebration

When you get older and your kids all have other obligations at Christmas time, you carve out time to be together and celebrate. Even if that time comes 3 weeks after Christmas. We were able to get David and Miya and Daniel and Becky together to have dinner, celebrate and open the gifts from our gift exchange last night. Darla fixed a nice Mexican food dinner with salsa chicken, ground beef, tortillas, and all the fixings for tacos. It was great. David had brought some concoction he made called Tamarind, which is a drink of some sort. Miya brought some persimmon loaf that was still warm and delicious.

 

As for the gifts, Daniel and Becky got us a Bluetooth meat thermometer for our barbecue. Now I can set the tri tip to barbecuing and know when it is done as my cell phone will tell me. Nice. They also got us another hammock seat cover for Darla's truck. This is for when Samson travels with us.

 

Jennifer and Mac had Daniel and Becky and got them each a book. Daniel got a book about engineering and Becky got a Christian novel. They also got them a heated throw for use when they are watching TV. David and Miya had McKenny and Jennifer and got them an indoor herb garden as well as some syrups for their soda maker. Finally, Darla and I had David and Miya and got them each an apron that reads "Miya, David's Girl" and "David, Miya's Guy". We also got them a gift card at a restaurant downtown.

 

We had a great time together as you can tell from the pictures. We put Samson in his crate while we ate dinner and then brought him out when we opened gifts. Jennifer and McKenny got him some pet safe tennis balls and Daniel bought him a couple of large rawhide dog bones ( I have a picture of him gnawing on one from today). He settled in good and was appropriate with our guests. I also included a picture of David and Miya from their New Year's dinner and celebration.

 

Daniel and Becky are working hard on his Dad's rental home that they are in the process of buying from him. It is located here in Roseville and they are getting the walls painted, replacing most of the flooring with laminate and cleaning up the backyard. They are partially moved in now, but will be completely in with furniture by February. They have never lived in a house before, so will be living with a lot of Craiglist furniture. They do have their master bedroom bed, but will be slowly adding new pieces to each of the rooms, starting with a dresser in the Master. It will be nice to have them close by.

 

David and Miya are doing well and Miya is looking forward to meeting the family at the wedding. Jennifer and McKenny have their wedding invitations and have worked all weekend to get those out. The wedding will take place at the Grove in Las Vegas and she has blocked rooms at both the Aliente Casino where we will be staying and at the Santa Fe Casino in North Las Vegas. Darla and I will fly in to Vegas on Thursday morning April 19 and stay until Monday April 23rd. Darla and I will take Samantha after the wedding and return her on Sunday afternoon to John. She will hang with us on Sunday and visit with family. The wedding is coming sooner than we can imagine. At one time it seemed so far away. but now it is 14 weeks out. Jennifer is starting to get a little stressed about the whole thing. She'll survive.

 

I played golf in the first tournament of the year at Diamond Oaks. It is a Captain Crew scramble event with all of the players flighted by handicap and then the computer picks random teams made up of players in A, B, C and D flights. That is the ideal. My team ended up with two B players, a C player and a D player. We struggled on the front with a 34 and shot 33 on the back for a 67. We birdied holes 10, 11 and 12 and I thought we were going places. Then we bogeyed 13 when we couldn't decide on a drive and took one in the fairway 185 yards from the hole rather than one in the rough 150 yards from the green. Oh well, it was fun. I'm not a fan of scrambles because I work and want to post a score when I play golf, but whatever. I had the closest to the pin on number 12, but lost it to the last group that played that was about 4 inches closer than me.

I had one of my employees approach me on Friday and tell me that she had a new golf club for me. I asked her where she got it and she said she wion it in a raffle. She told me it was a brand new Taylor Made driver! I figured it was an M1 or M2 and was ready to buy it from her. I opened it and it was a brand new...R1. Nice club, but brand new in 2012. I asked her when she won it and she said, "Um, I think 4 years ago." Nice. I tried to get a couple of the guys from the club to buy it as we have some guys who have literal antiques as clubs, but no one was interested. I may try it out and see if I want to change out from my Titleist 915 D. We'll see.

I took it easy today, watched some football and slept. Samson found a comfortable spot next to me and Darla took a picture.

Well, not much going on. Tomorrow is a holiday, MLK Day. I will be working and announced to everyone Friday that we would go casual dress and that Pete is buying everyone breakfast. That was news to Pete. I hope all are well. We'll do this again next week. Ciao.