It was a MERRY CHRISTMAS in Grass Valley

Happy New Year from me to all of you who read these words.
Sometimes plans do work out and, so far, our whole family Christmas gathering has been just wonderful. Laurie and granddaughter Dani arrived on the 23rd, Kevin the firefighter was not on shift Christmas Eve, and UPS, FedEX, and DHL had all done their jobs in getting the gifts here on time.

Because Kevin worked on Christmas Day and the day following, we had all of our Christmas on Christmas Eve. Judy, Laurie, and Dani prepared the turkey and stuffing, the wonderful green Jello mold, the candied yams, mashed potatoes, exquisitely smooth gravy, and the Swedish Meatballs (without which Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas according to Kev)

Our family gathers round the Christmas table

No one, except Alex, left the table the least bit hungry. Alex declared, “I don’t like anything on the table except the dinner rolls.” That’s what he ate. Little Andrew, on the other hand, ate like a lumberjack who didn’t know when he’d see another meal. He valiantly tried everything, liking most, and rejecting a few. He loved cranberry sauce (red) and the Jello (green) especially.

Everyone seemed pleased with their gifts. For the first time this blog article includes photos I didn’t take as Laurie took a few with her new digital camera.

Andrew says, "Give me some more green please.

This one is called "Hedwig's Hide" and is found in Memorial Park, Grass Valley, CA

We’ve been out geocaching, having fun and frustration introducing Laurie and Dani to our delightful new activity. They look forward to getting involved in it when they return to North Carolina. While hunting yesterday we found two and failed to

This one is "Go Bearcats" and is located near Union Hill School, home of the Bearcats. The cache is hidden in the basketball hidden at the left rear of the photo.

find another—even though the gps and Kevin confirmed that we were in the right spot. In one cache Laurie found a “travel coin”; a coin with a serial number on it that is traveling around the world with its travels available for viewing online. Laurie and Dani will move it a big jump by placing it in a North Carolina cache after returning home.

We’ll go out hunting again this afternoon and Laurie and Dani will go out with Kevin and the boys tomorrow. Kevin and the boys are much more experienced than we are and can teach them some of the tricks to finding these elusive hides. "Bennett's Easy Find" is another cache located along Bennett Road in Grass, Valley. Laurie is holding the cache which is actually an automobile gas cap with the "log" rolled up inside of it.

Geocaching is a lot of fun. It gets your mind working trying to solve the puzzle of the hidden “treasure” once at its location, it gets you outdoors, it provides as much exercise as you desire (there are geocaches on Mt. Everest) and, best of all, it’s free.

All good things must come to an end and Laurie and Dani leave at 0600 hours on Friday. Judy and I will return to the Desert Southwest on Sunday, in time for New Years with friends there. The Christmas decorations in the house will have to wait until May to be taken down and stored away for next Christmas.

Dani got all dolled up for Christmas. She's doing "Goth" right now. The blue hair is actually quite pretty.

I’ve given up preaching minimalism in the decoration department as many of the things we display have been around for all of our Christmas celebrations and are therefore, family traditions. Judy is going to decorate as she always have and, I must admit, I do enjoy seeing them.

We wish all of you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR in 2008. Good health, good friends, family, and fun.