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I have always wondered how some Christmas Traditions started. This is how "I Think" this one started.

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then Mrs. Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.

Then when we began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drank all the cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree. The angel said very cheerfully, "MERRY CHRISTMAS, SANTA." Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it??

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree!!

Well I THINK that is the way I heard it!!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF YOU FROM US..

On December 1st Steve and Mandy left for a 10 trip to China. They left Los Angeles and flew to Beijing. They also took two other flights within China. They saw lots of wonderful things including the Great Wall. You can check their blog for pictures in the next few days.

http://www.halashton.com

While they were gone Grandpa David and I watched Nolan for the first 5 days. We tried to keep him entertained. He came to watch me play shuffleboard. He went to the Country Store with Grandpa. He helped move chairs for the social. We took a trip to the train park. Check out the video of the train ride. I forgot how much energy an almost 4 year has. He is very loving and is very easy going so we had a very easy time. The people in our park enjoy seeing him and usually have goodies for me.

Thursday Dec. 3rd


This is our group from the Shuffleboard Social. I am the social director so I am in charge of booking a room and setting up chairs and making coffee. Everyone brings finger foods to share. It is a fun time to visit and discuss business. We have two socials per season and then a Banquet which I am in charge of. That will be in March..

After the social the park had hot chocolate and cookies in the ballroom followed by the tree light and singing Christmas songs. Nolan had a busy day..

Saturday Dec. 5th

Grandpa David and Nolan at the train park.

Nolan has a little problem running his train. Sometimes it goes to fast and runs off the track so he needs help putting it back on and sometimes the wheels come off and get lost so he and Grandpa have to take a trip to Roy's train world. Nolan likes to go their. They have several trains going around the top of the store and some to play with. We had to go there while Mandy and Steve were gone.

Click older posts for more pics

On Thursday December 10th we had our annual Christmas "Chili Dump" on 10th street. Several ladies make chili and mix it altogether. It always turns out delicious. Other people bring breads, cheese and desserts.

Shar, our hostess, with some of the food.

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Thanks, Shar for doing a Great job..

Singing Chirstmas Carols

David and I at the "Chili Dump"

NOLAN'S SCHOOL PICTURE. SO HANDSOME IN HIS BOW TIE.

KEIRA'S SCHOOL PICTURE. SO CUTE...

David and I hope you had a wonderful THANKSGIVING and didn't need to take too many Tums...HaHa.

Neighbors and guests.

One of our food tables. There was 2 more!!!

Some of our neighbors.

David and Shar, our hostess.

Our neighbors, Ed and Pat.

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Click older post for one more pic

More neighbors.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS. EAT AS MUCH AS YOU WANT THIS IS A CALORIE FREE DAY. REMEMBER TO GIVE THANKS FOR ALL YOU HAVE AND GIVE A SPECIAL THANKS TO JONATHAN, MANDY'S DONOR.

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We are having dinner with our friends from our park so will post some pictures later of the festivities.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR BEAUTIFUL GIRLS...

YOU WILL ALWAYS BE OUR BABIES..

So we settled into our routine for the winter, mostly shuffleboard..

These are our shuffleboard courts. We have 16 boards so 64 people can play at one time. They don't look this nice when we arrive. They have a lot of dry dirt on them. We got back early so David went up and hosed them all off. That takes several hours. Once some of the guys arrived they stripped of the wax and put new wax on them. Usually 2 coats. Then they buff them. When we play we put dry wax on them. This is a mixture of corn meal and little plastic beads. The birds like to hang around in case some of the corn meal doesn't get swept up.

David is working on winning a dime for this game. We play 2 games in the morning and the most you can lose is 20 cents. Each game usually takes about 45 minutes. There are two other players at the other end of the board.

John and Al are our two oldest players. No one likes to play them cause they are too Good. Combined age is 173 years!! See what shuffleboard can do for you..

So the large yellow piece of fruit came from a ladies tree here in our park. No it is not a grapefruit.. It is a lemon. It is the biggest lemon I've ever seen.

Tuesday the 13th was our last day on the road. We stoped at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It is located about 40 miles south and west of Carlsbad. It is in Texas.

This is our 40th National Park that we visited during our trip this summer.

El Capitan is 8,078 feet high.

On Saturday Steve and Mandy went to Las Vegas so we got to take Nolan to his T-Ball Game.

Nolan will be 4 in January..

He is a natural!!!

Nolan is playing T-Ball. He, of course, is the best player on the team.

We made it safely back to Arizona and are getting settled back in. Park model cleaned and 5th wheel unloaded, cleaned and put in storage til next summer.

I hope you enjoyed the blog. It was fun to do.

FYI We drove over 15,000 miles on our adventure...

Yesterday we arrived in Carlsbad, New Mexico for two nights. We went to the caverns today. We had been here 6 years ago and really enjoyed it. I guess I didn't remember how long a walk it was and how steep the descent was, however, it was worth it. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

This was our tour guide..

David at the entrance

David entering the Cavern

Click older post for more pics

I am pointing to a formation that we thought looked like a dinosaur!!

Funny sign in our campground.

So on Thursday we packed up and headed out on I-20 with the belief that traveling on I-20 through Louisana would be a better route than I-10 which we have always used. Well, WRONG!! We are glad that this is probably our last time in that state. Louisana roads are as bad as the ones in Alaska but without the scenery unless you like swamps. We are now in Texas. Well this is also not one of our favorite states. It is 878 miles East to West.. So what do you see is West Texas?? Windmills and oil field pumps..

I wanted to say Congratulations to Marcy, Chad, Keira and Max(the dog), on the purchase of their new home in Mason City, Iowa. Mason City is famous for the show Music Man..River City was actually Mason City..Marcy and Keira are flying to Minnesota tomorrow to attend a wedding for Marcy's college friend Julie Cotton. Congrats to Julie. Chad will meet them there and they will have a fun weekend together. I am sure they have missed being together the last few weeks. Keira make get her first look at SNOW!! They hope to take possession of their new home October 30th. Interesting fact is that their realtor, Abigail Lee, is Marcy and Mandy's sorority sister from Iowa State. She also only lives a few miles from their new home...

Saying Good-Bye to our girls. We will miss our Sassy Keira...

On Monday we stopped for the night in De Funiak Springs, Florida.

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Tuesday and tonight we are staying in Vicksburg, Mississippi. We are staying at the Ameristar RV park. It is owned by the casino. When we checked in they even gave us a complimentary buffet breakfast. It was delicious.

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Of course if there is a National Park close by we have to visit it.

Arch leading to the 16 mile tour of the battlefield.

Memorial to Illinois.