Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

The time during the Christmas season was filled with family and friends. On Christmas Eve day, Bobbie and Gina made a road trip from Twin Falls to share Christmas and pick up Bobbie's aunt and visit Gina's brother. Later that night, we had a wonderful primerib dinner with the Mom's, Tom, and Joel. After dinner, Doug and Margie wondered across the street to visit and stay for part of the gift celebration.

This year I was "santa" (note the hat!) and handed out the gifts one by one while we oooh'd, aaah'd, and took pictures of what we received...it was the best Christmas yet! Of course we say that every year! That evening it started to snow so Dee spent the night rather than drive on the the slick roads.

Christmas day started out shoveling the white stuff before picking up Linda's brother, Tim, from the airport. That afternoon we had a spread of the turkey with all the fixings and the leftover primerib with the additions of Tim and Doug and Margie.

On Sunday the 28th, we had our final Christmas with Sylvia and Jessie (Linda's stepmom and her granddaughter) at Macaroni Grill to celebrate - after 4 days of munching on leftover and goodies we needed a dinner out! A good time was had by all...which was evident by Tim going for the big bottle of wine on the table! The time until Tim left on the New Years Eve morning, the family got together whenever we could just to visit and enjoy each others company.

We would like to thank all our family and friends who helped make this the best Christmas ever! We love you all and wish everyone the best for 2009 - may all your goals and dreams come true!

Mother / Daughter Baking Night

Linda and I happily take on the challange___The kitchen in progress___Two bowls of cookie dough ready


Dee wrapping each cookie____Delores taking a break

This year Hopewell wanted to make chocolate cookies to send out to customers and friends, so Delores and I decided that we should have a mother/daughter baking night. I talked to Linda and we agreed that a double mother/daughter night would be twice the fun!!! We started at 5:30 at night and finished up just before midnight... our kitchen was set up into "stations" for the batches...butter and eggs first, then onto sugar and flour, next to mix in the chips and nuts, finally into the "big" bowl ready for the cookie sheets. We were able to bake over 3 dozen at a time, then onto the cooling racks before getting individually wrapped and boxed up. We estimated that we made about 55 dozen cookies and agreed that it was a good time right up until about 9:00 when it was determined that it felt like an assembly line and somewhat work!! We still agreed that next year we would do it again but maybe start just a little earlier in the day!!