Got the turkey all dressed up and in the oven. This one is pretty big it’s a little over 20 pounds.  It will be more than enough.  I wish I could have found one more in the 18 pound range since Using the recipe I do You have to flip the turkey over after an hour.

This will be a quite Christmas in some respects since neither Tim or Paul will be able to be in town.  They will be missed, but with all the festivities it will still be crazy.

Taking a few minutes, the turkey is almost done and I made some cranberry relish.  I don’t know if anybody else will like the relish, but I do.

Britt tried the Wii. She has been working on getting into tip top shape. She is going to run a half marathon in March and wanted to see if the Wii could be a good addition to her general exercise and running routine.  I think she enjoyed.

Tim was able to get the video conference running from Reno so everybody was able to see everybody.  Caleal was real cute.  He seemed to be almost mesmerized by the computer video.

Still kind of quite without either Tim or Paul here.

Charlie Shower (Linda’s Dad) decided he didn’t want to intrude when we started to open presents so he went and sat in the other room.  They told me to go in and tell Carlie to get in here with the rest of us. I went and gave him a hard time and told him to get in the other room with everyone else.  It was all in good fun. Linda thought the whole thing was really funny because no one “talked to her Dad” the way I did. Her Dad took it well, maybe a little surprised.

Sidney got Judy and me each a Christmas tree ornament.  Two more for the collection.

We were beat when everyone left.

Driving Judy downtown to pick up copies of our marriage license.  We have to prove to the health insurance company that we are married.  Almost 33 years and now they want us to prove we are married.  Marriage licenses are pretty cheep, 2 bucks each.  Judy wants to get a few birth certificates for Paul. They are $14, I think she said.

The marriage license record keeping system is old fashioned based on today’s standards.  All of the licenses issued in 1976 are in a big book.  When you want a copy they take it to a copier and reduce it to 8 1/2 by 14. For those that can’t remember their anniversary this might be a little tough.

A little more snow overnight.  Don’t think it will stay long it is supposed to be warming up and possibly rain on Christmas.  It’s not like the snow is really sticking much.  Still more of just a dusting.

Pat and I went out and worked on some more trees at the orchard.  These were a bit tougher, none of the ones we worked on had been trimmed in a while.  Science and art met… I hope.

Made pies for Christmas, two pecan, a blackberry, and a strawberry.  Not as many as in the past, but maybe this way there won’t be as much left over for me to eat.

Watched an episode of The Closer and it gave me a  perfect line to use on Judy, “Are your shoes afraid of the dark, if not put them away,” perfect.

I understand Judy helped entertain Jen on their ride to Reno.  I gave Judy a big lead, but I understand it turned into a squeeker.

Looked at my email this morning, Paul got his package.  He sent us a picture of his Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  Pretty sharp.  Just the thing a young single guy needs.

Paul's Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

Went hiking this morning with Greg at the Narrows. I was almost really late.  I was trying to add the picture of Paul’s Charlie Brown Christmas tree to this post and lost track of time.

Luckily my internal clock told me to check the time.  It was 8:49 AM, eleven minutes to meet Greg.  I am still in my robe and pajamas this will be tight. I hustled up and was only a couple of minutes late.  Greg was putting on his boots.  It was a nice morning, a few snow flurries.

We are at the winter solstice, yippee the days will be getting longer.   With the job at Xenia the getting up and going to work in the dark does not include, like it used to, going home in the dark.

Went to Lowes ab bought my new 8 foot ladder.  Now it will be easy to reach the top of the new twelve foot Christmas tree. I also bought the bucket attachment for the ladder.  Warner did a neat thing by adding a key system so you can add extensions to the top of the ladder. The bucket I bought clips right into the top of the ladder.  It will make it a lot better than trying to put everything in your pockets.

I also went to Sam’s to get some of the stuff we need for all the Christmas meals coming up. They were kind of busy, but they had plenty of check out help so it wasn’t too bad.

Banged on the piano some more today.  My fingers still don’t always do what I wan t, but I can recognize the melody to Heart and Sole when I play it. You never know!

Woke up this morning with a dusting of a little more snow.  Looks like we might have a white Christmas,  but barely.  Good thing we are not on the east coast, they got buried, one to two feet.

Tim and my iTouch Scrabble battle goes on, we are neck and neck (sort of). Tim comes up with some real creative stuff, me cat, dog, etc.

Worked on the piano for awhile.  Starting to get the hang of two handed play, but still have a long way to go. i will keep banging.

Went for a hike, the squirrels  were really busy today.  Saw a great blue heroin and a kingfisher.

Tim, rang me up and trash talked Scrabble.  So we turned on the computer video and finished the Scrabble game we started.  His trash talking didn’t help he went down, big. We started another game, but I turned it over to Judy.  It was my bed time.

Judy surprised me as I was leaving for church asking if I wanted to go to breakfast when I returned from church.  We had a nice breakfast at Bob’s and then went to Walmart.

At Walmart we tried to buy a couple of movies they had on sale.  When we got to the register they rang up at a higher price.  We explained the problem and the lady called the manager. He said they were mismarked and would not give us the lower price.  Seemed like poor customer service to us an we didn’t buy the movies.  Judy said she might go back to the store tomorrow and talk to the top manager and let them know of what we believe was poor customer service.  The price was marked what should we do?

Went with Pat to trim more apple trees.  Finished reworking all the ones we started with last year. Next time we start on some new ones.  Most of these are in pretty bad shape.  These trees might be, reach up 4 to 5 feet and top.  They look pretty good as trees, but not as fruit trees.

Watched Julia and Julie, fun movie, nothing that will rival the greats, but enjoyable.