And That's a Wrap

This past week has been full of activity and good news and bad.
We have been at my Mom's home in Las Vegas, NV since Dec. 18th.  It was great to be with her for Christmas.  We baked four different kinds of cookies.  We ate some and gave some to friends and family.

My younger brother, Dave, and his friend, Cathy, drove up from Phoenix to spend a couple of days with us.  We had a nice dinner out and home made pizza the second night. They brought this arrangement up with them.

Christmas Eve a young woman darted out from no where.  I stopped, but she ran into Mom's Grand Marquis and left a mark, for sure.  We are still dealing with insurance.  It was the first accident I have ever been in.  We were just thankful that no one was hurt and it is on the front bumper and didn't interfere with driving.

Our friend Katie sent us a wooden puzzle and we spent some time Christmas Eve and Christmas morning putting it together.  Thanks again, Katie!

We also ate a few cookies.

Last Nov. 21st Mom lost her husband of 67 years of marriage and I I lost my Dad.  The Holidays were kind of a blur to all of us.  We got up Christmas morning and received a phone call that my Mom's brother, King Hoffman, passed away during the night after spending time with his family at his daughter, Jill's home.  They had a wonderful time of singing and fellowship together and he was not ill.  Uncle King was 81 and they will be having Services for him on Tuesday.  It's hard for Mom to travel and we made the decision that we wouldn't be able to get back to Indiana at this time of the year.
Rest in Peace, Uncle King.  You will be greatly missed.  Please pray for the Hoffman Family.

Uncle King (bottom right) with his living siblings.  Marcella, Pearl, Rosie and Fran.  Don Hoffman is another brother that was not in this photo. This was taken at the Hoffman Reunion in Crown Point, Indiana in August 2014.

We made a last minute decision to drive the car to Anaheim, CA to see our daughter, Tana's family, who drove out there from Colorado and to see our oldest grand daughter.  Haley(17) who lives in California and we were also going to get to meet her boyfriend, Casey.

We traveled on I 15 and there was a steady stream of traffic, but things moved along and it was a good trip.

We drove through the desert full of mountains and there was snow capped ones in the San Bernadino area.

We saw this blimp as we came into town.

The kids spotted an In & Out Burger on their way to the area and so we met there for a burger before going to our hotels.

You can tell that Barry always loves a good burger.

We drove over to Downtown Disneyland to watch the Broncos football game at the ESPN zone.  It was a bit wild and noisy, but the Broncos pulled out another win.

Downtown Disney is still all decorated for the Holidays.

Grandpa Craig with Kyra.

It was a late dinner as we waited for Haley and Casey to get off work and make the drive up from San Clemente.  It was so good to see them and to meet Casey.

We had dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe.

Kathy, Casey, Haley, Kyra, Cooper, Collin, 

Carter, Barry, Tana and Craig.

Casey and Haley

Cousins
Kyra, Collin, Haley, Carter and Cooper.

Great to see five of our eight grand children having fun together.

Last night was the first time we have stayed in a hotel for a LONG time.  This morning, we will see Tana's family to say good-bye.  They will head to Disneyland for the next several days and we will make the drive back to the Motorhome that is still parked in Wellton, Arizona.
We have a couple of friends that have RVes and they will be coming in to Tierdrop Park this week.

I think this will be our last trip until next year!

Praying that you have a Blessed New Year!
Kathy

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Craig and Kathy

Christmas Blessing 

I have been trying to decide what to do this year for a Christmas letter and whether or not to send out cards.  I have written blog posts fairly often and I couldn't think of anything new that would interest you at this busy time of the year.

I decided that since Christmas is about the God of the Universe becoming a Man born through a Virgin that I would post this link and let you hear what that night was like.

Merry Christmas and a Very Blessed New Year.

Click on O Holy Night.

O Holy Night

Sugar Fest

December has been a great month to be in Arizona!  We've had some rain, but most days are sunny and at least in the 60's.  We have been enjoying the sunsets.

The area is so green with produce.  It's water from the Colorado River and the canal system that cranks out so much produce for the rest of the Nation this time of the year.

It's such a wonderful joy to stop at this fruit and veggie stand near Yuma to buy their wonderful produce.  We filled our cooler for our trip to Las Vegas.

We left the Whale at Tier Drop RV Park on the 18th of Dec and drove the 300+ miles to Mom's in Las Vegas.  We stopped in Havasu City to have a wonderful lunch with friends from Colorado who are Camping there.  Thanks for the yummy lunch Dick and Pam!  The visit was so fun that I forgot to take picture of them.  Below is Lake Havasu.

I can't remember the last time that I baked Christmas cookies with Mom.  She hadn't baked any in a few years because of Dad's ill health.  So, we decided to bake and that we did for two mornings.

Craig's favorite thing is eating frosting, but not necessary putting it on the cookies.  He did a great job of helping us get through this batch of my Grandma Hoffman's recipe for cut-out cookies.

The first day we made the cut-outs and then chocolate chips.

We finished up Saturday morning with thumb prints and crescent cookies (Mexican Wedding Cookies).

 We filled the cookie cans and put them away until she is ready to make up some gift cans.

Mom has been busy making these soft neck scarfs and she had one last delivery to make to her friend Marguerite. 

After our visit we attended Saturday night Mass with Mom.  They were celebrating a Filipino tradition of Simbang Gabi.  It's a traditional Advent Celebration.

My older brother, Bob and his wife, Pam, live in Minnesota and we won't get to see them for Christmas.  My younger brother, Dave and his girlfriend, Cathy, drove up from Phoenix, AZ for the weekend.  We had a nice dinner out at Don Vito's at the South Point and then came back to Mom's so they could sample all of the cookies.  I think Cathy would have taken them all home with her had we offered!!

Dave, Mom and Cathy

This was taken during the Great Sugar Fest.

Dave will visit with us today and we hope to just relax and enjoy the day.

Hope that all of your Christmas Celebrations and coming together.

Blessings,

Kathy

Things Are Humming

There are many things going on here in the RV Park to prepare for the Christmas Season.  But, the warm weather, green and Humming Birds makes it feel more like spring.

The neighbors have a feeder that gets guarded by these little creatures.

This is the bottom part of a palm tree.

Below you can see the Christmas bells that we hung up.  We noticed the little "hummers" buzzing around the red bow, so we decided to hand a feeder up, too.  

We have been enjoying our little patio area, but it has gotten a bit cool the past couple of days and it was windy, too. We'll need to pack this all away while we go up to spend Christmas with Mom.  We'll head up there on Thursday.

When we arrived here the gardens were all bare and being prepared for planting.  They water this area everyday (we can see the gardens from our RV window).  

Last week we had some time at the pool and it's such a lovely view for December!

What a unique cloud formation on the above picture.  We have still been walking daily and enjoying the green fields of produce.

The canal system is very intriguing and I love to walk along and here the little waterfall areas.

 Many people ask me how Mom is doing.  She is doing great!  She has been busy with outings with her friends for Christmas dinners and then my cousin Marty and his family treated her to a lunch buffet.

Debbie, Marty, Mom, Laura and Andrew

Mom with her nephew, Marty and his wife Debbie.

Thanks for treating Mom to a great lunch!

Well, time for me to get ready for church.  We have a great service right here in the Park that we enjoy.

Blessings,

Kathy