December already!

Time to catch up here before another week begins!  Can you believe it's December??

Last Sunday morning we woke up to a light layer of snow.  It was so beautiful!

After church Dick and I packed a lunch and headed for Lancaster County for the first time in seven weeks - the day of my brother Dick's funeral in mid-October.  Our first destination was Pleasant View Communities in Manheim to visit Dick's stepmother, Grandma Arlene.  We had a wonderful time catching up.  We're so thankful for her, the only parent we have left.

Next we went to Park City Mall near Lancaster to surprise Destiny.  She was working at the Auntie Anne's there for the three-day weekend.  Wow!!!  Were they ever busy!  They had the longest line of any kiosk in the center mall.  She said it was like that ALL DAY Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!  

What an exciting place at Christmas time!  The music and the lights!  In this video you can hear the glorious ending to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.  And you can see that long line for Auntie Anne's!

After we left there we went to my sister Mary Ellen's place.  She had recently gotten some of our parents' things from Dick and Nancy's attic.  There were several Family Bibles that were SO interesting! The calligraphy! We wondered if there was a family member who wrote like that, or if there was a person who offered to do it.  

Our trip home was interesting.  We were keeping in touch with Destiny and Alex.  They were about an hour behind us.  We hit stormy rain, even a bit of snow above Harrisburg.  When we got to Seven Mountains, which is the big mountain we go over before entering Centre County (our county), we hit crawling traffic, due to snow, on our side and NO traffic coming the other way.  We slowly made it up the mountain with no trouble and saw a tractor trailer jack knifed on the other side when we got almost to the top.  That explained the reason no traffic was coming the other direction!  

We were getting near home when Destiny and Alex started getting messages about Seven Mountains being closed.  We told them to get off at the last exit before the mountain and get a hotel room.  We had had to do that several years ago.  But of course, lots of other people were doing that too, and there were no rooms available.  After a while they got a message that the mountain was open for traffic again, and we were glad after all that there had been no rooms available!  We were SO glad when they were finally home!

On Monday when I took dinner over to Anthony and Lori's, Austin took me up to his room to show me the shelves displaying all his amazing creations.  Of course I had to take pictures!  I'm so glad he still likes to do such creative things.

Brennan's 6th birthday was on Thursday and I had not remembered to put a birthday card in the mail in time to get to Portland.  So a Jib Jab video to the rescue!  I thought this was so cute!!  That sweet face of his!!

There's no end to photo ops with Elizer in the house!  He's SO busy and nixy and sweet and naughty and adorable!! 

Destiny has always loved doing arts and crafts, so she was the perfect person to write the employees' names on the stockings for Auntie Anne's.  She did such a great job!  The next morning the glitter ink wasn't completely dry, so she carefully laid them on her back seat and hung some up with pins.  

Our son Frank (Destiny's dad) and his wife Lauren have been working HARD this past year.  She went to school for her cosmetology license, and they rented a building which Frank turned into a gorgeous salon for her business, Fleek Beauty.  Last evening they had a grand opening celebration.  We are so proud of them!

Also yesterday was our youngest son Ray's 39th birthday.  Like I said on Facebook, we did not meet him until he was 14 (bottom right picture).  He came for "a weekend," but when he walked in the door my heart knew he was going to be ours forever.  

Destiny had off work today, unusual for a Sunday.  So she and Elizer came to church with us this morning.  We do not have nursery service, but I did take him to the nursery to play while Pastor Lynn was preaching.  He really did pretty well,  and Destiny said he liked listening to my piano playing.  Awww!

This afternoon we got some Christmas decorations out.  With Elizer in the house this year we decided we would have just a table top tree.  Destiny got a little elf to sit under it, and we decided we really love it!

Have a good week!