Holiday cheer

Hello all.  We're enjoying the season.  I hope you all are.  Our enjoyment was dampened a little bit a couple of weeks ago when the dishwasher and the washing machine decided to go belly up on the same day.  Still, small miracles happen.  I called Whirlpool and they agreed to pay for the parts and we paid for labor.  The parts totaled somewhere around $700 when all was said and done.  That's certainly a blessing.  We now have 8 dishwashers at our home, although only 5 are really effective.

This year, we started a new tradition.  Jennah and I (mostly Jennah) decided that the kids might get more out of the experience of drawing names if they had to earn the money for and make the gift they plan to give their person.  After the initial name drawing I told Jennah we needed to draw names in January next time because of the ideas that started to percolate among the kids.  The most dramatic was a rather large (big enough for Brielle to ride) rocking horse.  Jesse wanted to make that for Bree.  I'm not even sure I could help him get that project done in a year, much less 4 weeks.  Anyway, he chose something simpler and we're okay now.  Still, it was fun to see how much the idea got them going.  Jesse had a list of things he wanted to make for everyone before the evening was over.  I even got my car washed, after a fashion, yesterday because they wanted to earn some more money.

Well, I love you all and wish you the greatest time over the next week and a half before Christmas.

Love

Dave