Jon with the bridesmaids.

Emily with the groomsmen.

The bridal party.

One of the bridesmaids, Alicia, who is one
Jeremy's good friends.

Emily and Jon with her family: parents Rich and Betty Martin,
little brother Isaiah, Grandpa Chris Huber, brothers Paul
and Uriah, and sister Ruth.

Jon and Emily with his family: mother Jane Grissinger,
Dad Ned Grissinger, (seated) brother-in-law Kenn Lefever,
sister Rebecca Lefever, Grandma, nephews Kurtis and
Daniel Lefever, and niece Elizabeth Lefever.

Emily and her dad.

Jon and his mother.

No pictures tonight.

I was all set to post a lot of pictures from the wedding we were at today, but apparently Blogger is having problems this evening and the pictures refuse to post. So the pictures will have to wait until tomorrow evening, since we will be going to Dick's parents tomorrow after church for the Stauffer Christmas dinner.

The wedding was beautiful and so much fun. And my eyes are going shut. Goodnight.

My new desktop

These are the black and white pictures I inserted into my
annual letter. Today I put them into this collage and made
it my new desktop picture. Dick said, "Now we all look the
same color!!"

Letters, calendars, and wedding gifts

There doesn't seem to be anything interesting to write about. I got my annual letter finished and mailed. I inserted some small black and white pictures into the letter this year. I would have needed to go to Office Max for a new printer cartridge and paper, but I looked up the website for Kinkos instead. We have a new one on Fruitville Pike. I discovered that I could send them my letter via the internet and pick up the copies later. So that's what I did. I thought that was pretty cool.

My family calendars arrived today and they are really nice. However, I discovered a defect. Two of the calendars have duplicate picture collages. One calendar has two pages of Anthony's collage and none of Frank's. The other calendar has two pages of Frank's and none of Anthony's. I thought we could just take the calendars out of their spiral binding and switch the pictures from one calendar to the other, but Dick patiently pointed out to me that then the one calendar would have two Mays and the other calendar would have two Junes!! So I'll have to email the place and ask them to replace these two calendars.

I went to Linens N Things this evening to get a wedding gift. Tomorrow Emily Martin and Jon Grissinger, both from our church, will be getting married at the Hershey Free church. Emily has been a close friend of Jeremy's for years and Jon was Jeremy's first housemate after Jeremy had bought his house in Lancaster several years ago. It was such a hard decision for Jeremy to not come to PA for this wedding. But he already was up here twice this year, and he just felt he couldn't make a third trip. It's been so much fun to see Emily and Jon "discover" each other after YEARS of knowing each other, without a clue of what God had up His sleeve for them!

Gettin' stuff done

This was a good day of getting more things crossed off my to-do list. I wrote a whole bunch of year-end donation checks, got the laundry done, and got my "Christmas" letter written. Everyone knows my Christmas letter comes after Christmas. There's just no way to do it until this week between Christmas and New Year. I almost thought it might be unnecessary to even do it this year, since most of the news will be old for those who read my blog. But I did it anyway for the sake of those who don't read this blog, and also because I always think that someday I will compile all my annual letters into a book for our children.

By the way, Anthony said he put the video of a my church's musical on his website a different way than he had at first so more people will be able to view it. So if you're interested, try again at www.anthonystauffer.com I also successfully put the collages I made for our family calendar in my web album on the side bar of this blog if you're interested in seeing them.

Pictures from Sophie's Christmas

I already had an email at 7:30 AM on Christmas Day entitled
"Thank you, Memaw and Pepaw". It was these pictures of
Sophie opening the gifts I had sent.

Later in the day there were more and more and more gifts
to open from George's mom and sister. Lisa said she put
some things away to bring out later in the year. Good idea.

She must have needed exercise after all that gift
opening! Here she is, hanging on the banister post!

George's sister Dawn, who lives near Philadelphia,
gave Sophie this adorable Eagles cheerleading outfit.
How appropriate on a day when the Eagles won!

Too good and too short

Just like that, Christmas is over. Anthony and Lori left this morning and Sam left this evening. I got a lot done today and I have lots more to do this week while I'm off from school, but I just can't get away from that let-down feeling. One day we're all together, even talking to and seeing the ones in Florida via a video phone call, and the next day we are each in our own corner of the world again. I just always have a hard time letting go of these good times of being together. They are always too good and too short.

Christmas 2006

We had a wonderful Christmas Day. The only thing that could have made it better would have been having Miki's family from Sweden and Lisa, George, and Sophie and Jeremy from Florida.

We started out with our traditional fondue meal, where we put two pots of hot oil in the middle of the table and each person fries his/her own food. The choices this year were beef, pork, and chicken breast cubes, chicken nuggets, and steak fries. (We've been doing this meal every Christmas since Miki was around 20 years old. It was her idea after the church youth group had done it.) Following the oil fondue we have cheese fondue with tortilla chips, crackers, etc. And the final course of the meal is the chocolate fondue with fruit, nuts, pretzels, and peanut butter graham crackers.

As we ate they were coming up with so many ingenious ideas of additions to the menu and improvements to the frying procedures that I told them next year I'll provide the place and the oil, and they can each bring whatever they want to dip into it!

A part of the day that I did not get any pictures of was when Anthony set up a video phone call with Lisa and George. We could see them on our computer screen and they could see us on theirs as we talked with each other. It was so much fun to hear how Sophie recognized us and called us by name as she saw us on the screen!

After the meal we gave the gifts we had. Most of them were
for Destiny, and a few for Elizer, Abby's son. (Her daughter
was not here because she was spending the day with her dad.)

We don't usually do gift-giving among the adults anymore,
but this year Frank did have gifts for Dick and I. This is what
he gave me. Abby said he got all emotional in the store when
he was reading what it said. She demonstrated how he was
blinking back the tears, and we all howled laughing. Then I
started reading it out loud and I knew I was going to start crying,
so I handed it over to Lori to read it. She read a few lines, and
said, "I can't do it either." So Dick finally ended up reading
it to everyone!!

Destiny got many gifts, and below are some of them. However,
what she really wanted to play with the most, was the remote-control
monster truck that Sam gave to Elizer, Abby's son.

She got this cute hat from Sam.

We gave her this almost-real puppy. It has a battery in it
which makes it "breathe". Its fat little belly goes up and down.
Anthony said, "If that thing lifts its head, I'm running out
of here!"

Lori gave her some play make-up, which crazy Ray was
helping her to play with.

Sam also gave her the Clean-up Barbie, which comes with
a dog that eats and poops. Barbie carries a magnetic pooper-
scooper to pick up the poop! I think the adults enjoyed this
toy the most!

In one day's time Destiny went from having no bedroom slippers
(because she had outgrown the last ones) to having three pairs!

So what do you do after you're all done eating and there are
no more gifts to open?

You can try to figure out how to use the gift you just gave
your granddaughter.

You can sit and enjoy the back massager that Frank gave to Dad.

You can play with Sam, without question,
the favorite uncle.

You can just "chill" on the couch with your brother.

Or how 'bout showing off your dance moves with the Boys
II Men Christmas CD?

Better yet, you can put your older brother in a headlock.

Even better yet, you can take a nap on Mom's big, old sofa.

You can eat ice cream from Mom's freezer, with all the fixin's.

5:00! You can watch the Eagle's game on TV.

Or you can just sit on Grandma's lap for a while.