Dec 7 07

December 7, 2007

We looked forward to this day because it is the Family Services Christmas party. In anticipation of the day we were all prepared with our gifts for the gift exchange. I’m trying to be more organized like Sharon is, so I bought the gifts two weeks ago and on Monday I put them in their gift bags and had them all ready to take with us.

After exercising this morning, and throwing cereal on the table for the Elders, we jumped in the car and headed for Snowflake. We got clear to Show Low before realizing we had left the gifts home. We are pleased to report to our readers that we dealt with this calamity without a major meltdown. OK, one of us had a short, minor meltdown, but not the huge OCD upheaval I would have experienced in my pre-mission life. We stopped at the first Dollar Store we saw and bought new gifts. We were supposed to stay within a $5.00 budget, so we got fleece blankets for $3.00, a keychain for $1.00 and a gift bag for $1.00. The tissue paper for the bags was our only over budget item. Actually we liked these presents better than the ones we left behind, which now the Elders will be receiving for their Christmas gift.

The party was fun. We did the gift exchange game and then had lunch at a health food deli in town. The service was excruciatingly slow but the food was all right and the company was good. We always have a printed agenda at these meetings, on which Ken Brown lists the next two training dates. It was weird to read the date for the February meeting and realize that’s the last time we’ll attend on of these training sessions.

Back home again and the Elders told us they got stuck in the mud AGAIN today! Someone came along and pulled them out. We had turkey sandwiches for dinner and jello poke cake, then they left because it’s pouring rain and we wanted them to get home before the roads get bad. Before they left they discovered a car off the road by the church, so Robert went out and they all got that car out. Can’t anybody drive in the rain around here?