Merry Christmas

I know I'm a day late but sure didn't want to pass up wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas eve my company shut us down at 11:30 so I got an additional 1/2 day off and was able to get a few errands done. Rudee, on the other hand, had to stay hard at it until her usual quitting time of 4pm. As soon as she was done we loaded up the car with presents and food and headed to her parents house in Plainfield. We stopped in Avon on the way and picked up my Mother so we could spend some Holiday time with her. Rudee's Mom always goes all out for holiday meals and this one was no exception. She had every burner on her stove working and food spread out over every inch of counter space. Rudee has a brother and sister who also live in Plainfield and with all the nieces, nephews as well as all of our clan we ended up with 22 people celebrating together. Our son Matthew had to work and couldn't make the trip from Ohio and we missed seeing him and his girlfriend Mandie.

We enjoyed spending the evening with family and watching the kids open all their presents. We left a little earlier than we normally do (which is a good thing) because we wanted to get my Mom back to her apartment. My brother was picking her up nice and early Christmas morning so she could spend the day at their house.

We made it home about 10:30 and Rudee started getting things ready to take to Amanda and Ryan's house in the morning. She pre-cooked sausage gravy, green bean casserole and a broccoli/cauliflower salad. We decided to exchange our gifts before we went to bed and Rudee liked her shirt, jeans and fuzzy robe I got her. She especially liked the diamond earrings :-). I guess I did good. She got me a book and a new drill which I had been hinting around for. We also opened gifts sent to us by Matthew. He sent Rudee a gift card and I got an updated map SD card for my GPS, cool!!

Christmas morning I was up early and had the coffee made. Amanda called about 7:30 and said the kids were up so we got our showers and headed over. I had loaded all the food and presents into the truck and when we got there I guess some things had shifted in the short trip. Rudee opened the back door and the green bean casserole ended up in the driveway :-(
At least the dish didn't break.

We spent most of the day at the kid's house and after I fell asleep in their recliner Rudee figured it was time to go home. She made plans with Amanda and Avalynn to meet in Crawfordsville and go to the movie. She had gotten a certificate from Disney for a buy one get one free ticket to their new release. I passed on the movie and just hung out at the 5th wheel. They had a good time and even stopped and picked us up a pizza for supper on their way home.

I felt a little blue this Christmas and not really sure why. I guess it could have been from my Father passing away or maybe just all the uncertainty in my life this past year from work. I can't really put my finger on it. I can say this though, I'm confident and dedicated to our plan to retire early and be fulltime RVer's. Sometimes I just get a little impatient that we can't just pull up the jacks and go.

The new skirting arrived at our mail server (UPS store) on Thursday. I wasn't able to check the tracking number until after they closed for the Holiday so I can't pick it up until today. I had hoped to get started installing it this week end but we have snow! Looks like about 2" of the nasty stuff fell overnight. I don't mind it too bad when I don't have to go out and work in it. Hopefully it will all clear off by Monday. I'll keep you posted.