A busy, blessed weekend

We enjoyed time with family and friends all through last weekend. Tim and Nikki arrived on Friday, and we enjoyed our time together! We opened presents, dragging out the fun of gift-giving, and laughing together as we did so. Below, Tim is opening some battery-run shower clocks: you put them in your shower using little suction cups. Those of you who know him well will know why that was a brilliant gift for him!



We made sugar cookies and enjoyed icing them.



Every year we take the little scraps of dough left-over and make the initials of all present. Dave did a masterful job of decorating them this year... he even used tweezers for candy placement! So, Mum, Pops, Tim, Nikki and Grandma got a special diminutive treat!



Our community of White Rock (which is sort of a suburb of Los Alamos if you can imagine such a thing, Gentle Reader!) has a large, white rock at its major intersection (yes, there is only one major intersection). This acts as a sort of community grafitti spot, and gets repainted for all sorts of occaisions. Tim and Nik painted it for Emily and Ryans's engagement, as Emily had painted it for theirs. And we had a wonderful time trying to get her to the rock to notice! Here are the artists with their work:



And here is the happy couple, once we finally got them to the rock after several failed tries:



It was a delightful weekend! And now Tim and Nikki are safely in Ontario, Emily and Ryan are back in Virginia, Ben and Elsa are in Minnesota, and our house seems so very quiet. And yet, Christmas is coming with its palpable promise, and God has blessed us richly, so there will be no complaining from my mouth!