Catching Up

Here is a picture of us before the Nutcracker Ballet Wednesday night. Hey! A picture of me for once! And C, too! We went out to dinner at Outback before the show with our friends who attended the ballet with us. It was a very nice night; good food, good ballet, and good company.

C was supposed to be off after Tuesday for the holidays, but he ended up staying home sick on Monday and going in to work Tuesday, Wednesday and today. On Monday, C worked in the backyard with me, even though he was a little under the weather, pruning the plants for the winter. We also started a fire to burn some tree branches we had pruned earlier this year. The girls had fun gathering up the cuttings of sage I had cut off the bushes and throwing them into the fire. It smelled really nice. I told the girls how people use sage to burn in their homes to cleanse the space, energy-wise. It felt like we were doing the same thing in our yard, getting it ready for the winter, and cleaning up.

Tuesday, we spent the day over at our friend's house. I helped the mom paint her livingroom while the girls played. It was a day of good conversation and the girls had fun playing. We saw them again on Wednesday night for the ballet. It was nice to have some playtime planned in with the Lifelearners on break for the holidays. I will be missing everyone by the end of next week. For the girls, it will be a good thing their Aunt is coming to visit, so they can make it through till we start up meeting again.

Today, I started making a yule log ice cream cake for our dessert Christmas night. My mother made one often but I could not remember exactly how she made it, so I improvised. Chocolate genoise cake with hazelnuts, vanilla ice cream filling and a whipped ganache icing should do the trick, even if it was not what she made. Papa, if you are reading this, send me her recipe! I might get the girls to help make mushrooms out of mereinge (I can't spell that and am too lazy to go look it up) to decorate the log with.

The coolest thing just happened! I was sitting here writing this and heard popping sounds from outside. Turns out one of the new casinos is having it's opening tonight and they had fireworks to celebrate. We went outside to see if we could see them and we could! So, we stood in front of the house and watched the fireworks. I don't even want to guess how much they cost; they were the most elaborate display of pyrotechnics I have ever seen. I love this town! Fun!