"Bare Bones"

It was a fairly big weekend. Christmas shopping. Christmas baking. Christmas wine. Christmas music. Testing Christmas gifts. Christmas wrapping. Christmas kids choir at church. Christmas trombone concert; like, ALL trombones; we had to take Matteo - and then have a follow-up dinner at Basil & Barley.

Fina made some Christmas Gift Cookies

Christmas gift from California

Papa cooked dinner.

Stringy Slime testing.

Fina's teacher gift packets

The search for gold and diamonds

That's Lexi 2nd from left in the church kids' choir.
Tracy and Fina were down-low-front doing the motions.

When I was a kid, my Mom would write on all the packages
what the contents were - in shorthand! So I got
the chance this year to do similarly - in Hebrew!

"Bare Bones" Trombone Choir

High Schoolers' Party

We started off the day with a wind advisory. And then we had a snow squall alert. When it finally did snow, it lasted only a few minutes but for that time it was a whiteout. Right on the heels of Monday night's party came Fina's Christmas Party for her friends from school. Of course, a great time was had by all. Good thing we brought in the three snowmen. BTW, Fina's got a "lace-up" shoe now to transition to from the boot. It'll be a few more weeks yet and some PT. Damaged ligament.

Started off with a snow squall barreling down off the mountains.

And this was the A/C cover
from the other side of the house.

Prep for the High Schoolers' Party.
Decorate your own cookies.

And so the Cellophane Wrapped Christmas Gift begins.

The little stockings are for the High Schoolers' Party.

The party!

It really did stick.

Happy Birthday from Nipomo! Love the ESAero glass!

AJ had them on a down-stay for quite a while.

Staff Christmas Dinner Party

We pulled it off. A sit-down dinner party for about 18. It was one of those all-work and totally fun days getting ready and executing. Thank goodness it was a school day, too.

Bright and early Monday morning. The kids are off to school.

Cheesecakes are headed to the fridge.
There's a single chocolate chip in each that
won the recipient a Rational Bible!

Most of this wine and some cognac ended up in the beef dish.
And yes, we sampled them all.

That was fun!

Oh, yeah!

"What's Your Super Power" Ornaments.
The pictured instruction sheet is here.

Don't miss the French Radish Thingy...

Hot chocolate bar. Coffee available, too.

The kids snuck up for some dinner.

And for some hot chocolate!

Party Prep and a Trip to the Pool

Tracy, Lynn, and Fina gave the personalized ornaments to their Sunday School preschoolers this morning! And some of the boys went swimming after the Chief's game! Most of the afternoon and evening was prepping for the big church staff dinner party we are hosting here at the Compound tomorrow night. Based on a recent sermon, our theme is "What's Your Super Power?" including an activity that culminates in a personalized Christmas tree ornament to take home (see tomorrow's post).

Can you spot the 4th boy?

Fina's re-wickered car decoration

What's Your Super Power?

Half of the twice-baked potatoes fit in the soda drawer!
Thank goodness as we were running out of room.