Christmas celebrations

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration. We had new family photos taken on the 23rd, there is one posted on this blog.

Christmas Eve night we attended a candlelight service of lessons and carols. Jonathan worked hard to organize this service with members of 4 or 5 different congregations. It went very well. Christmas morning was another combined worship service. We had our traditional English muffin sandwiches for breakfast and opened stockings before the service.

Gifts were opened when we returned home from church. The biggest surprises were the snowboards to Jon and Naomi. Jon also got a large gift of a mine sweeper game quilt from Naomi. She spent almost 4 whole days getting all of the blocks embroidered for it and then putting them all together.

All 3 of the children and Jonathan's parents have been here this week. So they, and my cousin Lisa and her husband David, were here for the renewal of vows for our 25th anniversary. (We were actually married on Dec 21st, but waited to do the ceremony until the family was all here.) I have to edit the video and hope to post it here sometime soon.

I hope your Christmas celebration was filled with love and joy as well.

Update

I have been in Oregon for 2 months this time, helping with my Mom's care. I arrived back in Colorado last weekend by Greyhound. This bus arrived in Denver 6 1/2 hours late due to snowy conditions on the roads. We had to have tire chains put on and off several times, and we could not travel the planned route through southern Wyoming due to the interstate being closed.

Denise and Jonathan's parents will be coming for the Christmas holidays. We will plan the renewal of our wedding vows (25 years already!) while they are here.

Denise is currently taking dental assisting classes. She was not selected for dental hygiene last year, but will apply again this spring. In the meantime, she is gaining job skills.

Jon Paul is being stationed here at Ft Carson. He will arrive once he finishes his 2 weeks of hometown recruiting in Georgia. He graduated from the EOD school on Nov 18th.

Naomi is making plans to leave for the Navy early next summer. In the meantime,

she will transfer to the local community college to continue with her college education. When she finishes the class she is enrolled in currently, she will already have 18 credits. She is enrolled for another 15 next semester. She is also taking guitar and piano lessons here on post

.

Gordon, the young man our family is sponsoring in Kenya, is working on getting his visa so that he may complete an internship here in the US. Prayers would be appreciated so that everything works out and the money for all the fees and expenses can be raised.

Early January will see Jonathan and I heading to Washington DC. He will be covering some meeting for our military chaplain's endoser and I'm going f

or a chance to see our nation's capitol.

I want to wish all of our family and friends a happy Thanksgiving. There are some many blessings we have been granted.

Back on the Road again

Late in August, I traveled once again back to Oregon. This time for a return trip of moving Naomi back to Colorado. That trip was made safely, but not without some problems (like a flat trip on the utility trailer and no spare- 68 miles from the nearest town.)

I leave today to go back to Oregon to help out with my Mom's care. I am not sure how long it will take to make arrangements before I can return to Colorado. This time I am taking the 5th wheel RV trailer with me. Hopefully, Mom and I will be traveling to Florida to see Jon graduate from his EOD school, maybe the end of October. (We have to wait to find out the date since he was set back because of having to retake a PT test because he got sick during the run.)

I am getting to the point where I can travel the 1400 miles without a map or GPS- not sure if this is a good thing or not.

New Goldfish

Our 8 year old goldfish died last month. I realized I didn't like seeing an empty aquarium, so I went and got 2 new fish. The gold one is called "Mutt" and the white one is "Jeff". (Mutt and Jeff was a long-popular American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1907.)

Playing Tourists

While Mom and Naomi were visiting Colorado Springs last month, we visited a number of tourist attractions. Be sure to click the link under each photo to see the entire albums of photos.

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument-

http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa105/r_d_landon/2011-07-01%20Florissant%20Fossil%20Beds/

Flying W Ranch-

http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa105/r_d_landon/2011-07-08%20Flying%20W%20Ranch/

Royal Gorge Bridge & Park-

http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa105/r_d_landon/2011-07-10%20Royal%20Gorge/

Manitou Cliff Dwellings

Manitou Cliff Dwellings, Colorado Springs June 14, 2011 (click on the link following the photo to see the entire album)

http://s200.photobucket.com/albums/aa105/r_d_landon/2011-06-14%20Manitou%20Cliff%20Dwellings/

Mom & Naomi here for a visit

Mom, Naomi and I (along with Taz the dog and Bruce the cat) drove from Oregon to Colorado. If things work out (mostly with the high altitude), they will stay for about a month visiting. We hope to be able to visit a number of the local museums and do some other fun stuff as well.

Happy Mother's Day

Love to my mother and all the other mothers that will read this blog. Thank you for all you have done and will do.

Time zone clocks

We thought it would be fun to put up clocks for the time zones of each of our children. I embroidered a new face for each clock and we posted them on the wall over the door to the back yard. They are arranged from west to east.

hike through Garden of the Gods

Jonathan and I went for a hike through the Garden of the Gods today. He had the day off from work, so we took advantage of the sunshine before the thunder storm hit the area.

Happy Easter

new storage rack for craft room

Last Saturday, Jonathan and I went to Home Depot to buy supplies for building a storage rack from my bins of fabric in the craft room. Jonathan had seen a similar rack in a magazine, we bought the supplies for a bigger one for about a 1/3 of the cost.

He spent 3 days cutting, fitting, disassembling and reassembling after gluing the pieces.

This is the craft room with the bins stacked in the middle to make room to install the new rack.

The new rack in place.

The finished project. It will be so wonderful not to have to lift extra bins trying to get to the one I need (which of course is almost always on the bottom of 2 or 3.) These bins are heavy- they are full of fabric!

I can't wait to get started on some new sewing projects.

Snow Day Mar 29 (Tues)

This is what we woke up to last week on Tuesday. Jonathan took this shot from our backyard, facing north.

Today the weather is supposed to be in the high 70s!! Everything is very dry though, and there are wildfires in several places around the state.

Home Again

Jonathan flew out to Oregon on March 17th to help me drive the truck back to Colorado. This drive was much easier than the one in December when there was lots of snow on the roads. This time we only had to deal with wind gusts (not unusual for this part of the country.)

We made it home on Wednesday, late afternoon. There is a lot of mail to sort and many things to put away, but the biggest job was to rehearse for the weekend retreat program that starts on Friday. Jonathan and I will be co-teaching this one. It is on building family skills.

Mom's shoulder fracture has healed, although there is lingering pain. Her walking is very slowly improving from the stroke. We are hoping she may be able to come to Colorado for a visit this summer.

Naomi is still in Oregon. She will continue to care for Mom and go to college. The new term starts on Monday.