Christmas has come...and gone.....and today would have been my parents' 67th wedding anniversary. Both are celebrating in heaven, of course, as they were Christ-followers and are living eternally! Which brings me to Christmas.....what a special Gift God sent down to us! His Son Jesus in human form to walk among us, teach the Good News of Salvation and die on the cross for every single one of us. All we have to do is accept that free gift, believe He is Lord and Savior and confess our sins then live for Him. Glory to God!!
On that note, I'm here to share five of the fave blessings the Lord brought into my week. I then link up at Susanne's site where other people are participating in this weekly gratitude exercise.
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| Special Education PreK staff I'm right under the wreath |
- STAFF CHRISTMAS LUNCH: On Friday, we were allowed to leave work at 2 so all of us at the Troy site left and met up at this pub nearby. We were saying "good bye and good luck" to our site supervisor/IEP coordinator, Jessica (2nd from left, standing) and to the 1:1 aide on my team (Dylan, kneeling on the floor in front and our only male!). Jess will be going to another special education preschool agency and Dylan is moving to NYC to take a job as a TA in a private preschool for children with special needs who live in Brooklyn. We had a wonderful lunch and delicious cocktails. We will miss Jess and we are already interviewing people to take her place. They will have big shoes to fill. She's been a wonderful boss. And Dylan will be missed as he is excellent with the children as an aide and he was on my team so I will especially miss him! We do have a replacement for him as well. I'm thankful we have time off to renew and rest and I'm thankful for the staff I get to work with each day.
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| HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY! |
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| Claire samples the DaVinci Red from Italy |
- BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION! Our youngest daughter Claire..the one who goes to UNH and is a ballerina....turned 21 on the 21st! What a fun day she had. It made my heart happy to see her hang out at the house with her friend Jonny (he's a great kid and we've known him since they were 15). Because she was turning 21, I bought her a red wine bottle ornament for the Xmas tree (we get the girls a different ornament every year) and I also bought her a purple wine glass. Dave got her the Red wine we enjoyed while in Rome....he had to special order it from Italy via our local wine seller. It was delish! Then that evening she went out for dinner with Jonny and then later to a vegan cafe/pub with her bff Maddie (who also turned 21 on the 21st) in downtown Albany. I'm thankful they had a designated driver (although she said they only had 2 glasses of wine each) and that she had a fun day with family and friends. I'm also thankful that her boss at St*rbucks said she can work for the next 5 weeks while home for her Winter Break. UNH gives 5 weeks off as they don't get an Autumn break and only 5 days for Spring Break.
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| Dave and I Christmas Eve 2019 |
- CHRISTMAS EVE! I just loved everything about Christmas Eve. We had a wonderful Candlelight service at church preceded by a yummy homemade pizza dinner. It was so funny but none of us consulted each other about what color we were wearing to the service. All of us showed up in the family room with dark green on! I couldn't convince the girls to do a quick selfie. But Claire snapped this of Dave and I just after getting back home. After we came back home, we all changed into cozy lounge-wear and grabbed plates of Xmas cookies, crackers and cheese, leftover pizza, mugs of coffee with Bailey's or hot herbal tea, and curled up on the couch to watch our absolute fave Xmas musical: White Christmas. It's our yearly tradition and one I'm thankful the girls still want to participate in. Afterwards, everyone scattered to their bedrooms but I sat and lingered by the tree, praying and just reflecting on how thankful I am for my little family and our church.
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| Courtney and I on Xmas morning |
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| Courtney and Dave on Christmas morning |
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| Claire on Christmas morning |
- CHRISTMAS! Christmas morning was a day we all slept in a bit. After opening stockings and grabbing mugs of coffee after eating some breakfast, we all headed into the family room to open gifts. What a fun day we had. Although we don't pile on the gifts now that the girls are older, all the gifts we bought each other were well thought out and intentional. After eating lunch prepared by Dave, we played a few rounds of Quicktionary...a new to us word game that is fast paced and hilarious! We then curled up on the couch and with just the Xmas tree lights on, we all watched A Christmas Carol (the one with Patrick Stewart as we all really like him). Christmas evening was just leftovers or snack type foods with more cookies and hot tea or wine. We all spent the evening doing favorite things like watching Netflix shows, reading a book, face- timing with friends. We also made sure to call up Dave's parents and we each took a turn to chat with them. I also called one of my very best friends and sister in Christ Diane from my hometown. I'm thankful for a nice "home for the holidays" Christmas with just the 4 of us!
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| from Courtney's pine tree in the backyard 26 December |
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| Walkway to historical cemetary in our neighborhood 26 December 2019 |
- NATURE WALKS/FITNESS WALKS: three times this week I've taken either a nature walk (leisurely pace) or a fitness walk (Power walk speed). The first time was with Dave and we walked just over 2 miles. That was a nice mild day with temps in the high 40s. The next day (Christmas eve) was a little colder so I only walked about a mile. And yesterday was another nice day so I walked just over a mile but at a very leisurely pace. I stopped to take a few pics around the neighborhood and our backyard. As you can see almost all of our snow has melted. We are ok with it! I'm thankful for a quiet neighborhood to walk in and for time out in nature.
That wraps up my week. I have all of next week off too of course and today we have a plumber trying to find out why our kitchen sink is leaking. Again. Tomorrow we head north to my youngest sister's house to celebrate Christmas Round 2 with all 3 of my younger sisters and their families.
Whatever you have planned for the weekend, I hope you take some time to reflect on what made you smile and say "Thank You, God" this week.
blessings!
1 comment:
Happy birthday to Claire! What wonderful celebrations you had Christmas Eve and Day. It's hard to say goodbye to people and readjust to new ones, but I hope that all goes well next year. The staff lunch was a great way to show appreciation to those going on to other things.
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