What a difference a year makes!

Last year at this time I was celebrating my birthday with my Dad as we did every year. My birthday is today, the 25th and his is tomorrow, the 26th. According to my mother I was born around 10:30 PM and she ought to know. Daddy would have been 83 years old tomorrow.

My mother and I went to St. Joseph today and did some shopping. Bill was working in the St. Joe office so he took us out to lunch at Boudreaux's. We all had chicken fried chicken. It was very yummy. Bill also took me to the show tonight to see the new James Bond movie.

Bill & I put up the Christmas decorations inside our house, inside mother's house and outside both of our houses last Saturday. We were truly pooped by the end of the day. The weather was pretty mild so we just kept going like the Energizer Bunnies that we are..... We were afraid it would get worse after Thanksgiving. This is the tree and fireplace in our family room.

Last year we had our little granddaughters here to help decorate Great Grandma's tree. We sure did miss their help. Here is a picture that was taken last year at this time of Sadie, Hannah and Abby.

It will be just the 3 of us for Thanksgiving this year, Mother, Bill and Me. Last year we were able to celebrate with Geoff, Emily, Alex, Hayley and Amber, and of course Daddy was still here. What a difference a year makes. Here is a picture of our Thanksgiving group last November at Mother's house. Sorry, Geoff is not seen, he is taking the picture.

Never thought it would happen

Gas prices were $1.94 at the Quik Trip this morning. We didn't think we would ever see them below $2.00 again. I could actually fill up my car for less than $30.00. WooHoo!!We are so excited to be getting a temple in the Kansas City area. It is actually just this side of Liberty. We are only 20-25 miles away. This is another thing we didn't think we would ever see, a temple we can drive to in less than a half hour. Here is a picture of the temple site. The temple is supposed to look like the Twin Falls Temple. It will be 31,000 square feet which is three times bigger than the Winter Quarters Temple. They can't build it fast enough.