Catching up on the news - Part One

I rode along with David while he golfed yesterday in Beaumont. The snow covered mountains in the distance were just gorgeous and since I wasn't playing I was able to hear the birds and really enjoy my surroundings :-)

A visit from Jim and Erin wouldn't be complete without a visit to the Crab Cooker in Newport Beach. Isn't this just the cutest picture?

On Saturday after Christmas we took Heidi and the kids to the beach while William was visiting with friends. The kids filled zip top bags with sand and shells to take back to Texas for friends. It was windy and cold, but the kids couldn't resist the ocean and ended up wet but happy.

Aunt Gretchen made a Happy Birthday Jesus cake for Christmas Eve. Here you see 4 of our 5 grandkids preparing to blow out the candles, with Uncle Kirk looking on.

This is a picture of the Table of Contents for our magazine, that was published online after Christmas.

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David has had the week off, so we're enjoying just slowing down, putting things back where they used to be, reading and enjoying the days. I kicked off the vacation by starting (for the nth time) the delicious book, 'Gaudy Night', and just tonight I finished it. I decided to google the ending which must be a proposal, "Placentne, magistra?" "Placet." This wonderful ending in Latin sums up the book (a mystery and romance set at Oxford) in the perfect way because it is also a question and answer used at Oxford in the conferring of degrees. All the dons are gathered, presented with the names of the candidates and asked "Placentne, magistra?" which means 'Does it please you, Professor (scholar)?' They answer, "Placet," which means "It pleases/I do approve." It's a 469 page former library book, battered and falling apart, but I re-read it as slowly as I could and enjoyed every page. I'd love to find a newer hardback copy!

Let's see... other news is that our magazine has now published! On December 28th Erin and I spent the day trying to work out all the glitches in our online delivery service, correct email accounts, pay pal stuff, plus design the needed web page, and more. She and Jim went down again in the evening to complete the last steps and the magazine was launched! (We can only work on the website from my computer at work since I have a Mac at home and it's a Microsoft website!) We're very excited and have had a small but steady response. You can see the page where we advertise here. I've taken a break from designing magazine pages but plan to start on the March/April edition next week.

David and I decided to take a short vacation this week and we had a really nice time! He wanted to golf and I wanted to ride along with him and also look for some new clothes. After considering various places, we combined these two desires by going to Beaumont for a "Stay and Play" package at a hotel near a very nice golf course. The round of golf was included with the $99 hotel stay. After golf I drove down the road to the outlet mall and shopped till I dropped, finding no clothes, but some nice dishes at the Crate and Barrel Outlet that I can use for taking pictures of food. So all was not lost! Today we got up and enjoyed the nice breakfast at the hotel, took a walk, did floor exercises and went over to Riverside to enjoy the Mission Inn. After a nice lunch there we took the tour and saw many interesting parts of that amazing and beautiful hotel. We got home in time for me to finish reading my book while David watched the last bowl game of the season. 

We had such a wonderful time having Heidi and William, Madeline, Abigail and Sam here for 5 out of the 7 nights they were in the area! It was also delightful to have Erin and Jim and Garrett here as well for 12 nights over Christmas break. Gretchen and Chris and Anders were also able to be here all day Christmas and had the fun of having each sister's family over to their place in turn. They were also busy with family, as Chris's folks and aunt were able to come out from Cincinnati over a period of a couple of weeks. As parents, we just couldn't have hoped for a better time for the whole family and are so grateful that everyone was willing/able to make the huge effort to make it all happen! Thank you, girls (and sons-in-law)!