We hope everyone had a merry Christmas and are having a nice week before the new year. We are enjoying our time at home though of course missing our families.
After our trip to Chicago, we found that there was still much to do before Christmas because of some things going on in our ward -- people who needed some things -- and so J.J. was entrusted with taking care of them. She worked on Monday, and so we had Tuesday and Wednesday to put some Christmas baskets together and deliver them to the people. (They didn't all get delivered on time, so I guess Santa won't be entrusting any of his delivering activities to me for quite some time.) (I did have all presents to family and to our family done, wrapped, delivered or mailed on time - even early which is quite an accomplishment for me. even the calendars were done early with only a few late nights. I was proud) On Monday I also made some spiced nuts with bits of sugared bacon to give out to neighbors and people I home teach. (Paul always comes up new recipes to try to give to the neighbors. These were actually pretty good - better than the mint truffles which had so much mint they burnt your mouth and the truffles with chili powder in them that tasted like they had cumin in them) But it turned out to be late for some of the people that I intended to give them to, as people had already left by Wednesday when I was ready to deliver them. But we enjoyed the extra, and ended up sharing them with others throughout the week.
I did some work Tuesday at the office -- I didn't go in the whole day because we were working on some things at home. Plus, it was an icy and rainy day that didn't seem to invite us out of the house. But I wanted to get started on an article that I would like to finish over the break so I went in. As I mentioned before, the temperature was turned down in the building, but it was fine for a few hours work. I didn't even have to wear gloves. I also did some more work on Wednesday for a few hours, and then went in for the whole day on Friday. After about 3 hours, it felt a little chilly, but I would just get up and walk around a little to get the blood flowing again. The weather warmed up a lot after Christmas day -- Friday was near 60 degrees and Saturday reached an amazing 73 degrees -- so the building temp of 50 degrees wasn't a big deal.
On Christmas eve, we proxied one of J.J.'s family tradition of having chinese food for Christmas eve dinner, inviting our neighbors across the street to eat and visit. That was a lot of fun. (I was very excited about the food - but it make me very lonesome for home - and we didn't have any egg foo young because no one else would have eaten any.) Claire, Katey, and Rachel played while we visited with Doug and Bridget for a long time. It was a fun evening, but we enjoyed the company so much that it was way late to do much else. We opened the pajamas from the "christmas elves" and then took the girls to bed. (Rachel was so tired, she didn't even want to open the jammies. The mean parents we are, we forced her to open them, put them on and even take a picture.) We ended up reading the Christmas story on Friday evening -- sort of backwards but it worked out.
Claire woke me up at 7:00 on Christmas morning, after telling J.J. that she wasn't sure if Santa came because there were no more presents under the tree, since the living room is in between the stairs and our bedroom. (7 am - did you hear that Coffman Clan? I let everyone sleep. I figured it would be better than two very grumpy girls later and one sleepy, tired dad) But she didn't see the stockings and presents that were laid on the couch. J.J. had been awake since 5:30 (waiting patiently) so I am glad she let me sleep. Rachel was still sleeping, so we started to make breakfast, to Claire's disconcertation, and ate before we opened presents. (I did let Claire get into her Santa gifts. I am not that cruel to make a 4 year old have to eat breakfast and just look at her presents from a distance - plus, I wanted to get into everything too!) Rachel woke up around 8:00 and then we opened our presents. Claire passed all of them out to everyone, and then opened hers and loved each one. (She also opened almost all of Rachel's and many of mommy and daddy's) Rachel wasn't very interested in the opening process, but liked seeing the new toys. After they were all finished, we got around to opening our presents. We were all finished around 10:00, and then we got dressed -- Claire and Rachel stayed in their pajamas all day -- and started cooking dinner. Rachel went down for a long mid-day nap, and our friends Trevor and Shara Harper and their baby Jackson came over around 1:00 for dinner. We had ham, rolls, and Walker Christmas jello that we made, and green beans and corn that they made. It was a nice dinner and for dessert we had peppermint ice cream pie and some leftover coconut cake that Trevor and Shara brought. They left late in the afternoon after we played a game (we played "Would you Rather?" a favorite game of mine), and then we went next door to visit Bob and Esther, and discovered that Santa had mistakenly left some gifts there for Claire and Rachel so they opened them there. It was fun to visit them and the girls, of course, love having an extra set of grandparents next door.
When we came home from there we all went to bed, all of us being quite tired from the day. Friday morning I went running for the first time since the marathon, and my muscles are still sore, but I went about 3 miles. I went into the office and worked all day, and then we relaxed at home in the evening. Saturday morning J.J. went to Paducah for her shopping trip on her own, which she has earned, and I stayed home with the girls. (I ended up spending quite a bit more than I had planned, but there were some great sales and I found many things that I didn't know I "needed". It was a fun day by myself. It's fun to go with friends sometimes, but sometimes I just like to go all alone - no pressure at all) Since it was a warm day, we played outside a lot. It was windy with a storm coming in, but we just wore t-shirts it was so warm. I watched a little football in the afternoon and evening, and also went to the church to do some financial paperwork, trying to get everything ready for the end of the year. J.J. was gone for most of the day, but in the evening we just hung out and watched football and read as the storm came in and dropped a couple of inches of rain on us. I think we may have received 5 inches or so during the week. (This is not what I expect to have for Christmas weather, I really do miss some snow)
Sunday was a thin attendance for our ward being the holidays, and the main speaker, who is the second counselor in the bishopric, almost passed out while he was speaking. He is diabetic, so he must have been low on blood sugar or something, so he didn't quite finish what was until then a very good talk. He was fine after sitting down and eating something. We were all relieved he didn't fall down. (he is a big guy and it would have been quite a crash. I haven't seen anyone really quite that green) We relaxed at home in the afternoon and then two of the single adults came over for home evening and that was fun. (We played yahtzee and Claire liked that because she got to play too) Between the chinese food and our Christmas dinner, we have had lots of leftovers, which has been nice for ease of cooking for all of our meals -- no cooking.
That's it for this week -- we love you all and hope you all have a great new year and that the best of everything comes to you often.
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