Another fine day!

It's dark out there, totally black, which should be great for the boat parade and fireworks display downtown. Lawcocks invited me to come to their hotel room on the river to watch the parade and such from the balcony. Since I didn't get to go downtown last night for the tree lighting, candle holding and caroling event which we generally go to every year we're in town, I considered joining them for this fun. Emily's sister and her parents also had rooms with river frontage which would have added to the enjoyment but I opted to decline.

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Justin and I went to Palm Coast today for the baby shower of my niece, Tina, and got to see Marian as well as Tina's mother-in-law, Joan. We went down ahead of time so we could chat a while and even got to see Biff, who looks awful! My brother-in-law has emphysema, is terribly thin, all greyed out in his hair, whiskers, and even skin tone. When he breathed, it sounded as though he was humming, and I mistakenly asked him if he had a song in his heart. He said no, it was his breathing and then I felt badly for mentioning it. The good news is that he's finally quit smoking after all these years of struggling to breathe, the terrible coughing spells he'd have, and all that. I wish the ladies at the baby shower could have spent some time in the presence of Biff, perhaps they'd think twice about lighting up!

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Maya was quite amusing at the baby shower, the grande finale being eating her cake with bare hands and getting the frosting in between her fingers, quite the hoot! Tina got so many nice things for the baby, some utilitarian and some for dressing or bathing. Our gift, Justin's and mine, was a musical ceramic piece, with an angel watching over a small child. It plays "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and written on the base of the piece was ".....before me", ....beside me", "....behind me", etc. I knew she didn't need much as far as baby stuff went since Maya is only two years old but felt an important thing was for both little girls to know about Jesus. Always workin'! Plus it makes the baby's room look pretty at the same time.

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After getting upstairs, Justin called me right back to say he located his service folder from Victory and brought it upstairs for me. He just loved the worship and even the service folder was special. On it, different things for which to be thankful are written in a variety of text fonts, such as teachers that make learning fun, the color red, finding just the right words, breathing crisp mountain air, brats and saurerkraut.....Gotta love it! Even a mention of learning a new Bach piece!

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The first order of business this a.m. though was to decorate the huge (i.e. scrawny!) CHRISTmas tree in the lobby of The Palace. In the parking lot last night as I waited for Lawcocks to pick me up for dinner, Chardonnay and her mom were walking through on the way to next building. Chardonnay asked me if I would be available to help decorate the CHRISTmas tree in the lobby today since the lady who usually "runs" that project has her nose out of joint and refuses to play along. I had a couple hours before heading to Palm Coast and brought down my apples to use on the tree, since she asked if I had anything gold to add. Rose, another neighbor, joined us as did Chardonnay's mom and her caregiver. It was not THAT large a tree and I wasn't really needed except to sing as we put ornaments and bows on our scrawny tree. Justin arrived and we went upstairs to get ourselves ready for the shower. It was fun to do the decorating but sure didn't need all of us doing it. When I came home this afternoon the lobby looked just beautiful, my apples adding just the right touch to our decor!