Almost ready for Christmas

Did you realize that a week from tonight Christmas will be over? It just seems so unreal for me and it's difficult for me to grasp that fact. Melissa and I went to the grocery store and bought all the food for Christmas dinner (except the Ham and Turkey - I'll pick them up Christmas Eve day). Dan and I will go down to her house after I pick up the meat and I'll help Melissa prep for Christmas day dinner. I want to try and show her how to do it instead of doing it all for her - when Mom was down at Thanksgiving it was just much easier to do it - three cooks in the kitchen are about two too many. But it will just be Melissa and I in the kitchen and I'll have a chance to show her how to do things.

I am still waiting for two more gifts to come in the mail - they are both Dan's so I hope they get here the first part of the week. I don't know when I'll get back down to Melissa's house before Christmas Eve day, so I don't know when I will be able to pick them up and get them wrapped. We have to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday - so I don't think we'll get down during the week. I'm sure I'll figure it out somehow - even if I have to wrap it when I go down to help Melissa prep for Christmas day.

I think that Dan and I will probably go to Lakeland and see the girls there on Thursday. If we go up there in the morning and come back in the middle of the afternoon I'll still have time to go down to Melissa's and get things done. It will just be a busy day, but that's okay. Crystal and her dad are suppose to be here sometime on Christmas Eve and then Kim will fly in on Christmas morning. Crystal will drive down to Fort Myers to pick Kim up while Melissa and Justin will go into Lakeland. Dan and I will have a quiet morning at home before the family gets together in the afternoon. It should be a good time for all.

For the first time since Thanksgiving we have a camper right next to us here in the campground. I guess I shouldn't be disappointed - but there are lots of other spots the ranger could have put these people - I mean - there are only about 5 or 6 other campers in the entire park other than the volunteers. They could have put them one or two spots down - but that's okay. We have been very lucky with not having very many people in the park - I really didn't expect that. We have been told that it because of the construction that is still going on in the park. In fact, we will have to close the loop road where all the walking paths are completely tomorrow. The man that is doing the paving came in today (he is camping here in the campground) and he is planning on being in the loop area tomorrow. I don't know if he can do it all in one day or not, but I know that when he is paving we certainly can't have people down on the loop walking or biking. It should be real interesting telling people that they can not use the loop road at all, but we have to do what we have to do.

I have some phone calls to make tomorrow afternoon after I get home from work - and Dan has the Dish Network service guy coming out to the park tomorrow. We are having a problem with the receiver freezing up - sometimes the picture will freeze and we will still have sound, sometimes the sound will freeze and we'll still have picture, and sometimes they all freeze. Anyway, he is going to come out and check out the receiver. For some reason the lab that does all Dan's blood work doesn't have a record of him being on Medicare all of a sudden. It's not like this is the first time they have done the blood work since he has been on Medicare but we get this bill and they say they don't have a record of his primary care insurer. So, there is another phone call I'll have to make. Fun and games.

Well, Dan has seen Faith Hill sing the Sunday Night Football song and I'm watching "my boy" play - hopefully he will do well. So, I'm going to sign off for tonight. Hope you all have a great week - all you school board people start enjoying your two weeks off work.

Talk to you tomorrow!