One Week Until Christmas!

 Busy days at the Jones House!!!

Globetrotting Grannies have been home 2 months and on comes a little snow, Thanksgiving, gatherings with friends, Christmas parties - and Ross is the best Christmas decorator ever as usual.  I would probably have a 3 foot fake lighted tree in the front window!

And this month it is 5 years since I had surgery and chemo started for the Stage III ovarian cancer and every day I am grateful and feel like a miracle!

So....I guess I'm done with park walks until the snow flies away as the cross country trail in the park 2 blocks from our house is ready to go and they are going!  I call it Mount Uffda as I don't climb it any more to get to the walk path!

So when you own a house and it was built in 1986 there is always upkeep for sure.  We had a rotten deck and we had replaced it several years ago but the wood rotted.  So of course when they start digging the foundation is rotted, they found a little damage behind the siding from water/rain etc so more ripouts, a little replaced siding, moisture barrier and of course more $$$.  What started out at about $29,000 for big back deck, front porch and stairs and upper loft balcony ended at over $50K - whew!  But it turned out great and the workers did a great job.

We decided to continue with a little "privacy wall" so the people on the street can't spy on us and we chose black metal and the pattern is "Mailibu" and it does look like ocean waves in California.

Before - ongoing for at least 6 weeks!

And our lovely front yard was well decorated with junk boards!

Next up - Thanksgiving and we had 7 of us and what else but turkey dinner.  Grandson Alex is a sophomore in college at UND Grand Forks ND where Chris and Amy attended.  Lucy is a sophomore, driving and a super lacrosse player.

Sweet Alex always asks what he can do to help and he is the best potato masher ever.

Another day in the life of Fairview retirees and we have so many memories of all of us working decades at the same hospital and now were are getting up in age and all enjoying retirement to the hilt!

And of course our quarterly Fab 6 group of the 3 dietitians and their "guys" and we have been doing this since 2009 after I retired in 2008 before the others and they were lonely for me.  So we take turns and it works great and we giggle and talk a lot as do the guys.  It's like family!

Jeff knows I love Outlander and who better than Jamie the cute guy in the show so he gifted me with "cake toppers" which are edible and can be used to top a cake, cupcakes or cookies and I can't wait to do that.

Our first get-together back in May 2009 and we are still jsut as goofy as ever.

2014 - time flies!

Soooo - getting ready for our trip to Havana Cuba in February and it is a tour of course with our travel buddies from Pennsylvania and we will not stray from the path as I think the rules are pretty strict and it must be a "people to people" and cultural tour so we stay in Cuban owned hotels and eat in family owned restaurants.  Stories coming...and let's hope for no hurricanes or power outages as a few weeks ago the power was out on most of the island and just last week our hotel got changed to one with "better electrical coverage".  Adventures on the way!

And we did have a choir party last week with 29 people and fully decorated house (by Ross of course) and I do the cooking instead of a pot luck as I do like to cook and we consider it a gift to the choir!

My "menu"!