Early Christmas

Poppy came down last weekend for an early Christmas celebration. On Friday we all went to Pizza Hut and then to the PX where the kids picked out a new ornament (a yearly tradition) and also chose a toy to purchase and give to the Fire Department's Toys for Tots. Saturday we had a Christmas lunch. Granted it wasn't too fancy- the ham was leftover from a church party and the turkey was leftover from Dave's work party. I didn't go all out on the food, but we did have decorative paper plates!




Saturday morning we opened gifts from Poppy and Grandma D and Great-grandma D and the rest of the Idaho bunch. Livvy and Faith enjoyed porcelin dolls which is a tradition for Grandma D. Seth enjoyed munching on a new big. And Paul was excited about a racing motorcycle that Poppy helped him figure out. Then the two played chess.

Saturday evening we drove to Nashville where we went to the Grand Ole Opry hotel and saw "The Hall of Trees" which could have been better and cost less and we watched a fountain show-- this was the highlight of the night, unless you want to count eating at McDonalds. The fountain was very cool- water sprayed here and there in conjunction with some Christmas music and narration of the nativity. We happened upon the end of a show and caugt a few minutes. Thought we'd grab prime seats and hang around till the next show- which ended up being much later, but we stayed. The kids LOVED getting close enough to get sprayed by the fountains and we all enjoyed a little mist. Paul was soaked after about 10 minutes of getting too close and this meant no browsing the lights outdoors afterwards. I think his hair and sweatshirt would have frozen.

We're so glad Poppy could come and we thought fondly of those in Idaho whom we missed. Poppy took off early Sunday morning to beat the snow storm.