MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU!

It is Christmas Eve here in Washington, DC. We are here with Grover, Cris and the boys to celebrate the holiday and Wes' first Christmas. Andrea, Cathy and I drove up here on Friday and we ended up having to rent a car for me to drive since the car Andrea and Cathy came in (our car) was too filled with presents for me to have a place to sit!

We went to see the National Christmas Tree at the White House last night. As you can see, Wes appears a little bewildered with all of this Christmas stuff. I think tomorrow when it is present opening time he will suddenly become a Christmas aficionado.


In Front of the National Christmas Tree. From L-R, Cathy, Andrea, Cris (Holding Wes), Landon and Grover. I was the photographer

It will be nice to all be together but we wish Lee was here with us also, and of course I wish, as I do at every Christmas, that my Mom and my brother Steve and his wife Judie could also be with us along with Gustavo, Dorte, Luis and Teresa, but we have too global of a family for that.

But we have much to be thankful for. Luis came home this week from the hospital after a serious operation and is resting comfortably at his home in Madrid. Katie who I have told you about often is doing pretty good considering what she is going through. Andrea is three weeks minus one day from becoming Mrs. Lee Botham and that is going to be a fun time.

And while I fell off the wagon on updating my Blog, first intentionally and then because I just got behind, I am going to do my best to tell you a few great stories about the last six weeks over the next few postings.

I will end this with a story that happened this week. I was over at my good friend Bill Robinson's house on Thursday to drop off a gift for his kids. He looked at me as we were talking and said "That is a really nice coat you have on-where did you get it"?

I said I didn't know. I had found it in the closet about a month earlier and I really, really liked it as it looked good and felt very nice and warm. I said it was from Nordstrom's (based on the tag) and the only thing I could figure out was I thought I had bought something at Nordstrom's in San Diego earlier in the year, and while I thought that was a tie, perhaps it was this coat because it had been cloudy and cold there.

We talked a while longer and suddenly it hit him. He said "Wait a minute. I bought you that coat for Christmas a while back. I can never figure out what to get for you and so I saw that coat and liked it and bought it for you." Then I remembered he was right! He must have liked it since he bought it, forgot about it and was admiring it the other day!

Once again, I approach the end of the year recognizing how stupid I am at times. Here I am telling him I thought I bought it in San Diego when in fact, he is the one that gave it to me as a gift!

Merry Christmas to all of you, politically correct or not (I don't mean you, I mean the expression).

WHY YOU HAVEN'T HEARD FROM ME IN A WHILE

I last posted something on this Blog on November 20th, 24 days ago. I normally do not go long periods without getting diarrhea of the typing fingers which can only be treated by rambling on and on about inconsequential things in my life.

But, I intentionally waited 14 days since my last posting because what I wrote then was important. It was the story of Katie and I wanted to leave it as the first thing people saw when they pulled up my Blog since it was such an important story. I was going to post something 14 days later but other things have gotten in the way and I will write about them later.

In the meantime, Katie's story was on TV. If you go to this website Click here for the TV clip of this wonderful young woman

and click where it says "Watch Video" on the right hand side and you will see a 2 minute video of Katie's story. Cathy, Andrea and I are honored that they included a photo of the three of us at the wedding in the video. Katie’s Dad does an incredible job on this TV show. I hope you have a second to go look at it.

I will update life on Sunday probably after Landon, Wes and their parents fly back to DC.