One word describes this week — Christmas! The main event was Christmas Eve dinner. Mark and family came on Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd). They were flying back from a vacation in Mexico and stopped for a couple of days. Ryn drove down from NY and stayed overnight. Ed and Lynne drove down for dinner. I picked up Mom so she could join the dinner and festivities. Danita prepared some of her signature dishes. There was much more food than we could eat.

On Christmas morning Ryn and JaMMM had a gift opening, primarily for the kids. We had a great time doing family things and opening presents. A new family member joined the photo-bug club. Here is the very first picture Mira took with her brand new camera. (Maia was off doing something much more important.) Then it was time for everyone to go home.,

I hope all had a great Christmas.

There are a few small things to do, but we are basically done. We have full use of our kitchen. We’ve moved back into our bedroom. We can use toilets and sinks on all floors without restriction. The new shower is great. Woo Hoo! It’s all just in time for visits from Kathryn and Mark & family. There are some pics on the website.

The builder did an amazing job of protecting floors & furniture. They hung plastic to minimize the construction debris. hey did a wonderful job of cleaning up every day. But sanding walls creates a lot of dust. We have been through a cleaning cycle twice. We are declaring ourselves dust-free. Many pictures are rehung. The place looks and feels like home.

The backsplash for the kitchen sink was installed Friday. I would like to say how great it works, but they left it covered with protective plastic and to us to keep our hands to ourselves. The electrician will be here tomorrow. Next is the plumber. At that point, we should have a working bathroom and a working kitchen. We aren’t sure we will get everything done this year, but once we have plumbing, we’ll have what we want most.

We had double entertainment with Mom today. The first was music and lunch for all assisted living families. The music group did a nice job. The lunch was plenty of good food. After that, we went to a concert given by he Suspicious Cheese Lords. I wrote about this group last year. They are a group of 10 men singing a cappella. The concert is in the beautiful chapel. It’s old style architecture offer perfect acoustics for this kind of music. And if they want to use an organ for one or two pieces, there’s a nifty one on hand.

That’s it for us. Cross your fingers for a stove and a toilet. I hope this finds everyone doing well.

Danita did a brilliant job of cooking ahead so we could eat home-cooked dinners during construction. Her cooking plus a few restaurant dinners took us up to Friday, which was the original estimated completion date. Unfortunately, it looks like we will have two more weeks of construction, which is currently at a standstill. We are waiting for the kitchen backsplash to be fabricated and installed. The biggest excitement was the party to decorate the clubhouse. Danita normally goes to this annual event and I usually stay home. This year, I attended so I could share in the pizza and cookies available to those who decorated. I even found a job I could do to help out.

Our biggest excitement was the delivery of shelf liners. There were two boxes. One was delivered to us Friday afternoon. The second was delivered to our neighbor about 10 PM Friday. In the delivery instructions, we ask the delivery persons to ring our doorbell, so we know the package is on our doorstep. They did not ring our doorbell for the afternoon delivery, but they did ring our neighbor’s doorbell Friday evening. Our neighbor was startled.

My other project last week was to switch our clubhouse internet service from Comcast to Verizon. The switch was triggered when Verizon notified us that they no longer support land line telephone service. We now have all our phones lines provided as part of the FIOS internet service. As a bonus, we saved money on the new arrangement.

I hope this finds everyone doing well.