12/13/2010 (Mon) - Departure time is Close

Friday night (12/10) our little group went to see the light display at the Arizona Temple.  The campus covers about one huge city block and almost every inch of it is lit up.  The palm  trees have fans of lights at the tops.  Not one palm tree but all the palm trees and there are many.  The ground has lights everywhere except on the sidewalks.  All the trees have lights, not just a few, but every branch has lots and lots of lights.  Many different varieties of lights too.  The new icicle lights too.  Some that are on the ground look like flowers growing.  It is just amazing to see.  Thousands of people come to see this display as it is really impressive to say the least.  They said it takes an army of volunteers to put all the lights up.  For as many lights that were up it had to take at least two months to finish it all.  Not one bulb is burned out.  It's perfect.  They must have their own power plant as you can see this display from at least a mile away.  Then we come back to our little street......with no lights at all.   sniff sniff.

On Saturday (12/11) Jim and I went to pick up his sport coat.  You know the big huge non-shopper guy.  We arrived at the store and Jim said to me to make sure I remembered which way we have to go once we get off the escalator.  We had to go down the escalator to the men's department.  So here is Jim walking down while the escalator is taking us down.  I'm thinking he was in a rush.  We stood ( I rested) while the salesman got his coat and away we went.  Now I've been told I walk pretty fast but there was no way I could keep up with the non-shopper.  We got to the up escalator and no kidding Jim was walking up while the up escalator was taking us up.  We got on the main floor and Jim hardly missed a beat in his stride as we headed for the door.  I don't think we were in that store more than three minutes.  I don't like to shop for a long time either but I am no where near the non-shopper like he is. 
ps:  The coat does look nice on him...with the shortened sleeves.

We received the neatest early gift from my daughter the other day.  We now each have Christmas lights that plug into our USB port on our computers.  Festive I would say.   We just might be the most festive on the street.

The lights actually light up and they can be wrapped around the computer.  Cute huh..

 I do have to tell you that for just years and years my daughter and I have been 'really really' afraid of snakes.  Really true too.  So a long time ago I started to send those rubber snakes in packages I sent to her (mean aren't I).   She would draw snakes on paper for me and put them in cards.  In the gift with the lights was perhaps 20 of those tiny rubber snakes.  I about screamed when I pulled them out as they looked really alive.  I'll get her for that. 

Can you believe there are 20 snakes there.

Sunday (12/12) brought church and then we met up with 'the group' to play the game farkle.  Farkle is a dice game where the number one is worth a hundred points, the five is worth fifty points, three of a kind are worth points, and so on down the line.  Fun game to play.  We each put a dime in the pot and for each farkle we have (that's when you don't get scoring numbers) we put in a nickle.   There were nine of us tonight and guess who won, not once, but twice......drum roll......that would be me.  See my money. 

Great haul

Tonight (Monday (12/13) we met up with 'our group' again to have our farewell /Christmas dinner.  Pam and Bill are heading out on Wed. for Illinois with Mel and Joanna leaving on Thursday for Canada.  I'll miss them alot.  Great great people.  We each brought something for dinner and we also drew names to buy gifts.  The limit was $5.00 not including tax.  That was one hard job.   What a riot tho.  I rewrote the story, The Night Before Christmas, to include them.  Now that was harder than I thought.  We had reindeer antlers for the reindeer (that would be Jimsher, Pamcer, Melcer, and Joanna-aim.)  Santa hat and paper face was for Santa.  Had a black sack for his goodie bag that was filled with candy for their stockings.  Was just a fun time where we laughed a lot.  But the undercurrent was one of sadness because we all knew we would not be together for quite some time. Going to be hard to leave.  The following pics are from our get together.

Reindeer Pam

Reindeer Joanna

Pam, Joanna, Mary

Reindeer Jim

Reindeer Mel

Santa Bill

Bill, Pam, Mel, Joanna, Jim

Santa, Pamcer, Melcer, Joanna-aim, Jimsher

Once in a great while a person is fortunate enough to meet some really wonderful people and I can honestly say Jim and I have done that.  We know without a doubt we will be friends with these two couples for years to come.  Yes they are going to be hard to leave......