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One of the wreaths from the "Festival of Trees". All of the businesses in town have one of these HOWDY signs in their window. We have one in ours as well.
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Yesterday was our 11 month anniversary. (Saturday) In some ways it feels like we just barely got here and in other ways it feels like we have been here for years. I know some of you have expressed how long it feels since we have been gone. Morgan says it feels like we’ve been gone forever. I just keep thinking - we just have to get through winter.
Monday was our prepare for the week. We didn’t have any adventures but did some laundry, clean up, etc. We have really been missing getting to see the grandchildren (children don’t be jealous). I love Christmas stories, and so decided to start on December 1st reading one Christmas story or book to the grandchildren on the Marco Polo app. Monday, I went to the library and checked out 10 children’s Christmas stories. It’s been fun doing that each night. On Friday night we went to a Christmas activity in town and didn’t get home till 9 pm. I didn’t get the story read till then. Emma was quite disappointed to get ready for bed and hear Grandmommy’s story and there was no video. But . . . to our delight, the other grandchildren did a video of them all doing the Macarena. (official definition - a dance performed with exaggerated hip motion to a fast Latin rhythm.). I definitely saw some hip action going on. Thanks for that video!!
Tuesday we did some service work for the Smith’s new trailer. Keith got some doors from the Bishop’s trailer that will be burned, and gave them to Richard. A couple of his doors were broken. Richard sold Keith the washer and dryer from the trailer for $100 for the pair. A blessing for both of them. We also got the Elders to help move the washer and dryer at the Aylesworth’s on Saturday. Lots of helping all around. It always feels good to be of service to someone. That is something we want to be better about when we get home- making time for others more.
Wednesday was our serving lunch at the Senior Center. The crew there is in bad shape. The head cook - Keisha was in the hospital last week with high blood pressure and anxiety. One of the other ladies has a heart monitor on and has to keep her lifting to 10 lbs or under. We worked extra hard to help out - especially Walt. He really gives it his all there. We sat by some new people - on purpose that day.
I’ve doing “Light the World” and on Wednesday, it said to sit with someone different at lunch - so we did. It has been wonderful having those little suggestions of ways to reach out and include others and helps others feel the love of the Savior. Some of our seminary students are doing it as well. If you haven’t checked it out - you still can - go to lighttheworld.org. (just click on those words).
Seminary is going pretty well. We only have 10 days left (2 weeks)!!! For the semester. There is an assessment next Thursday - the students have to get 75% correct to pass. If a person passes all 4 years of seminary - they graduate. So Thursday and Friday, Walt did a review with candy for participation, of course!! Tomorrow we are playing scripture Bingo to help with reviewing the scriptures they are learning this semester. One of my favorite is Matthew 11:28-30. That is the scripture about Christ bearing our burdens and giving us rest. That’s always been a comforting scripture to me. We all need that.
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One of Walt's lessons set up on the table - candy is in the jar. There are students at the other two tables. It's not just me singing.
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Thursday was a very busy day. We were gone from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. We were supposed to call Bingo at 6 pm that night, but we were both so exhausted, that we called out. We had District Council in Gillette. We went early to get Walt’s hair cut, do a return and pick up our groceries at Walmart. This might be the last time our current district will meet together. Transfers are this upcoming week. We never know who is leaving until a couple of days prior. So we took some pictures of the group. Afterwards, we got our free pizza and headed to Upton. We stopped by Gary’s first. We spent most of the time helping him order some things from Hickory Farms. He wanted us to stop in Billings this upcoming week-end there, but I looked online and there was free shipping and a 10% off coupon for signing up with my email. I guess I’ve become his personal Christmas shopper. We help however we are needed.
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| Selfie with sister Shamo and Sister Smouse at District Council |
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| Our district one last time. We found out 3 of them are being transferred this upcoming week. |
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The fun picture
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Our next stop was the Smith’s. Nic was super happy to see Walt - his personal playmate. We tried to keep the visit to about an hour so we don’t wear out Renee so much. There has been lots of help getting the new trailer ready. We found out today that Renee is moving to the hospital permanently on Tuesday. It will be good for Richard to be able to just be her husband and not her constant care-giver. That is an exhausting task. It makes me very sad for Renee. I know she wanted so much to be able to stay home until the holidays were through. I think she will come home for Christmas - weather and her health permitting. It also is like the beginning of the end for her. We all know it’s coming, but it’s never easy - it never will be. She is Michelle’s age. It will be nice to have her here in Newcastle though. We can visit more than once a week. She is literally 3 minutes from our house. The ward is all rallying around this sweet family; such a blessing.
Friday was the start of my holiday baking. We did some planning and we have decided to give goodies to 23 families. I’m doing half this week and half next week. I did think to borrow a Kitchenaide mixer to make things easier. Becky lent me hers and several small loaf pans. I made cranberry orange bread, M&M cookies, peanut butter blossom cookies, Krinkle cookies, Chocolate with peppermint M&Ms, and soft ginger cookies. We have been gathering Christmas tins for this event for a couple of months.
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| First batch of cranberry orange bread |
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All the cookie for the first group of families
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I got our oil changed on Friday and found out there was a “Festival of Trees” at the Senior Center that evening. So we decided to check it out. We try to go to most of the community things and visit with people. We got there right at 6 pm and saw a line where people were paying. We didn’t know any details about this event. The cost was for those that wanted to drink alcohol. You could buy a commemorative wine glass for $10 and fill it all night. There was a nice spread of food (for free). The whole event is to raise money for local charities. This year it was the Newcastle Fire Dept and Home Health Service (who provide very discounted services to patients in the community - Renee is one of them). The real wreaths are provided and businesses or individual decorate them and donate them to the event. Then they are auctioned off and the proceeds are given to the charities. The Pinnacle Bank sponsors it, provides the decorations, live music, food, wine, beer, etc. So we got to rub elbows with many of the business owners and people with money in town. Anyone could come though.
We saw a couple of people that we knew and they invited us to sit with them. That was really nice. It made us feel a lot more comfortable. We made our rounds of checking out each wreath, got some food (no wine or beer) and enjoyed the night. The auction started at 7:30. The first 3-4 wreaths went for about $200-400. Then people got loosened up and some speciality wreaths started coming up for auction and the bids were much higher. Some of the special wreaths were from the liquor store (came with a wine rack and 4 bottles of wine), the local NRA (came with tickets to the NRA gala and a revolver), and one of the cowboy ones came with a Latigo (laso) and pair of brand new cowboy boots. The wreath from the Fire Dept was auctioned off three times. The first person bought it for $1,300 and re-donated it. The highest paid wreath was the one from the NRA - $2,700. A total of $35,000 was raised that night. Another unique experience for us.
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| Group shots of the Festival of Trees |
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| The guy with the beer bottle is one of the helpers for the auction. So Wyoming!! |
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| Our friends the Tavegie made this wreath |
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| Wreath from the NRA |
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One of my favorite wreaths
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| Love this one with the Latigo and boots |
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| Just love this one! |
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Donated by Cambria Bowhunter
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Saturday was more baking, wrapping presents and cleaning up. We had the Aylesworths over for dinner. They were the first ones to get their Christmas tin of goodies. We also made the Chicken Curry dish that we had at the Baileys (we put up pictures of Walt cooking that before). It turned out pretty good. Everyone loved it and all had seconds. Then we had Christmas cookies for dessert. We did a lot of reminiscing about each of our wonderful experiences during that 24 hour open period for the temple back in November. What a journey we have had with the Aylesworths. It’s been such a wonderful blessing to be part of it all. They have such a strong testimony and really feel the joy of the gospel in their lives. They have so little temporally and are so rich with blessings in their lives. They trust in the Lord with all their heart and He always takes care of them - like with the washer and dryer and the Elders showing up unexpectedly to help them get them into their house.
That brings us to today. (Sunday) Sacrament meeting was really good. The sister in charge of the Christmas program on the 22nd asked if anyone that could - stay and we would practice as a “choir” a couple of songs for the program. I think this is the wards’ first choir. Amazing. Since Walt had to stay anyway, I chimed in with the choir. I love to sing. I am not the best, but I really enjoy it. There were about 8-9 women, and at first only 2 men. But a few more straggled in later - ended up with 5. We don’t sound wonderful, but we still have another week to practice. There isn’t as much planning ahead here as I am used to, but a lot of things are just that way in Wyoming - unpredictable. After choir practice, I took goodies over to one of our sisters who lives in the Manor (one of the nursing homes) - Joyce. I haven’t seen her in a while and it was good to catch up. She loves cookies!!! Her birthday is this month and she put in her order in for regular chocolate chip cookies.
So speaking of unpredictable - the weather. We have really been blessed this week with really nice weather. Today it got up to 51 degrees. I didn’t even wear a coat. I wore a short sleeve dress and regular sweater. The snow is mostly melted; leaving us with . . . mud!! It’s that season!! I know it ’s supposed to get colder this week. So just a minute ago, I was checking the weather and it said it was snowing outside!! I checked - yep - a coating on the car already. Guess I’ll be wearing my winter coat, scarf, and gloves in the morning. The mornings are always cold. Usually our car is pretty frosted up in the morning. We’re so grateful Walt installed the remote start in our car. Every morning, we start it up 10 minutes before we’re ready to head out to seminary. We didn’t really use it last year, but we didn’t get up at 5:30 am, last year.
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| One of the nice warm days last week - no coats |
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| Then back to some snow |
This week will be filled with visits (delivering goodies) and more baking next week. We hope you all have a good week and keep sharing that Christmas spirit.
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| Love this picture Walt took. One of the kids getting candy from the Bishop's office |
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