The Blessings of Christmas 2013

Rather than beat myself up for not keeping my goal of blogging often, let me just concisely excuse myself by the following:  Life Happens!  We have spent our first Thanksgiving away from at least some of our biological family and friends and have adopted or been adopted by another couple of families.  We meshed our holiday traditions together--including those from Boston, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Germany-- and the end result was quite nice.  Since then, my husband surprised me by having our daughter and son-in-law to secretly fly across country from Orlando, Florida, and after giving me a fake reason for going out, drove to our airport, picked them up, re-entered the house to go upstairs and three minutes later had them to knock wildly at our front door!  Have you ever been so surprised that you can't get coherent thoughts to come to the front and usher sensible words out of your mouth?  That was exactly what I felt when I opened that door to see my daughter's sweet, laughing face and Philip's "Grizzly Adams'" look beside her as we swept each other into bear hugs.  We spent from Friday evening to almost a half day of Monday reconnecting and engaging in new adventures!  The Christmas season began with this visit!

Since that weekend, buying and mailing presents for family and friends have been the main focus.  (My tip for myself, in the event we do not get to be at home again next year, is to again start early and bypass any shipping companies other than the postal service, specifically parcel post, unless I am mailing an elephant!)  Roy and I finished it all in time to entertain a military group for lunch, attend a military ball, and fly to Phoenix for 7 days of relaxation and adventure.  The Christmas spirit still pervades our diminished family--Roy, myself and our two furry babies Huck and Finn--as we are currently at this point in our Christmas blessings.

Christmas Day arrives in five days;  we will open a few gifts and turn our sights to the week after the new year when our sweet boy arrives for a week of visiting and major playing with Huck and Finn.  We do and will consider ourselves blessed beyond measure as the 2013 Christmas season ends, and I will turn my eyes to March/April when I once more see my babies in person (hopefully, this time Thanh, Phal and the grandbabies also)!  Life continues to move on, and we are very aware of being in the center of God's Will as we enjoy peace that can only come from the Lord and trust Him to take care of us all.