Still alive

For those of you out there that follow this blog (I suspect that number is pretty close to, possibly even below, zero) I'm still around. With colder weather and some rain, I haven't been taking lunchtime walks, and since that's been the bulk of my posts, I haven't had much to say.

Not that there hasn't been much to write about in general. I've have a fairly busy and eventful month, going back to Thanksgiving weekend. At Thanksgiving we had my parents over for dinner, and had a great spread. We went to a tree-lighting in Placerville. Over that weekend I put up Christmas lights outside, and we started inside decorating. We went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra at Arco, and they were great.

By the following weekend, we had our tree up, but took time out on December 1 to sail on San Francisco Bay and then attend a Christmas party with Cece's co-workers. I portrayed Toto in a Wizard of Oz-inspired skit for work at the Crest Theatre and stole the show. My own work Christmas party was on 12/6 and that evening we went back to Arco for Mannheim Steamroller.

We went to the annual Lane Family Cookie Exchange and nursing graduation (Pinning) ceremony for my daughter-in-law's sister-in-law. By the time the week before Christmas arrived, the external activities had slowed down which gave me a chance to start Christamas shopping. As usual, Cece did most of the other shopping, sometimes with me in tow, but I had to do shopping for her on my own. A marathon three-hour session had me visiting 4 Targets, 2 Longs, a K-Mart and a Kaybee in search of the Holiday Barbie. No luck. I was successful for other stuff for her, though. Then, when I discovered that Wal*Mart had the Holiday Barbie I rushed right over and picked on up. Back again a week later to pick up the Birthstone Barbie on behalf of Brad. Finally, my shopping was over.

The annual trek to Dovewood Court and Christ the King's Nativity play rounded out the weekend before Christmas weekend.

A blowout on Christmas Eve morning on the way to work made us have to get a new tire at Les Schwab's. Christmas Eve was at Mom and Dad's, then back home with Matt and Katherine, Cece and Brad. Christmas Day was lazy, never even leaving the house. A nice dinner for the three of us, though. Later in the week, we went to Marilyn's on K to see Adrian Bourgeois and chatted with Larry Tagg.

On top of all that, visiting a different Lutheran Church each Sunday as we are continuing our quest for a new church home.

So it's been busy and that's just a bit of what we did during December.