Tuesday, December 1
The best part of the beginning of this new month was that Barbara was making great progress in getting over whatever bug she had for the last couple of weeks. While we didn't push things too much, after I returned from prayer meeting at Yantis, we began making plans for decorating the house for the Christmas season. There wasn't anything noteworthy to document, but at least it was a start.
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Wednesday, December 2
Today was decorating day around our place (at least, it was the first day of decorating). We boxed up all the regular decorations from the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and moved them into the spare bedroom for the time being.
When all the surfaces were cleared and dusted, We set up tables in the garage and living room, and started bringing all the boxes of Christmas decorations down from the attic. We sorted through boxes and decided what we wanted and (generally) where we wanted it to go, and then began checking to see how well our visions matched what was really possible.
Surprisingly, the process went pretty quickly. With minimum changing of minds about where we thought things should be placed, it all came together...at least for today.
These photos of some recent acquisitions, it was beginning to look a little like Christmas. The metal tree is something we found at the shop of some friends. The decorations on it are artifacts of our childhood...ornaments that hung on our family Christmas trees nearly 70 years ago.
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Thursday, December 3
We were up and about early this morning to get ready for a dermatologist appointment in Lindale. It was a good thing we got an early start, because almost as soon as we got south of Mineola, the fog closed in to the point where we could barely see the road in front of us at times.
We got to the clinic just fine and I had a good check-up, but when I pointed out a place of concern on my right temple, Mr. Gautier, the PA, did a cut for a biopsy and said that it was most likely another squamous cell cancer, and that we should be prepared to schedule a surgical appointment. Whoopee...again.
Most of the fog was burned off when we returned to Mineola, except for a thick patch around the Sabine River. We got through it okay and then went to Walmart for some shopping before returning home to put away groceries and then not do much of anything for the rest of the day until time for band rehearsal.
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Friday, December 4
We spent the day cleaning house and getting ready for some church friends to come over for hamburgers and trimmings this evening.
While Barbara worked in the kitchen on her part of the meal, I was outside firing up the grill to charcoal broil the hamburger patties.
Our friends Reed and Luann, and Jerry and Diane joined us for an evening of food, fun, fellowship, and games.
Saturday, December 5
After a morning of sleeping in, and an afternoon of doing laundry, we drove to Canton to meet our San Antonio friends, Carol and Sonny Bade, and their family for dinner at the Jalapeno Tree. Carol and Sonny were in town for the First Monday even in Canton (something we have yet to experience for ourselves), and after an hour's wait at the restaurant, we were finally seated and enjoyed a great evening of catching up on all that had happened since the last time we saw them in San Antonio.
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Sunday, December 6
It was a typical Sunday. We went to the morning service at Yantis First Baptist Church, returned to Mineola for lunch and an afternoon nap, returned to Yantis for the evening service, and then back home. Nothing exciting, except for the fellowship and worship experiences we had with our fellow church-goers.
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Monday, December 7
We don't seem to recognize the significance of today very much anymore, so here is your "little" history lesson for the day. It was on this date in 1941 that the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, drawing the United States fully into World War II. It was a time when The Greatest Generation stepped up to do what had to be done, and those who returned from the war then began rebuilding the nation's infrastructure and economy.
We did a little building on our own today when we drove out to Yantis to help some of the men from the church put up the scenery for our upcoming Living Nativity (known among the workers as the Christmas Drive-by).
When all was done, we said goodbye to the crew and returned to Mineola to while away the afternoon and evening at our own place.
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Tuesday, December 8
A full day of house work made this day truly not worth remembering or writing about.
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Wednesday, December 9
Just for the fun of it, we drove to / Tyler early this morning so Dr. Mead could carve another notch on my head. Squamous cell cancer is a pain...in more ways than one.
After the surgery, we did a little shopping until the pain meds started to wear off, then we returned home for some good pain meds and an afternoon of sleep. We were supposed to go to the annual Christmas get-together at our Edward Jones office, but that fell by the wayside.
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Thursday, December 10
I was feeling better this morning, so we began packing to go to Dallas for a few days to volunteer with Snowball Express to honor the children of our fallen warriors. After getting everything pretty much packed or set out, we went to Autumn Wind to see our dear friend Jenny.
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Friday, December 11
We had really hoped to ride Taz to Dallas for Snowball express, but I couldn't fit a helmet on my head because of the bandage (and the pain of putting anything over the bandage), so we loaded the car and set out on a new adventure.
We drove to Canton to meet some of the East Texas Patriot Guard Riders, and then formed a caravan to go on to Dallas and the Hilton Anatole to set up shop in the sewing room for the next few days.
Our group was in charge of providing and preparing leather motorcycle jackets for the children who would be attending Snowball Express. Each child receives a jacket on his or her first trip, and can later upgrade as they change sizes. In addition to sorting hundreds of jackets by sizes, we also began preparing and "gluing" the patches so the sewers could work their magic.
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Saturday, December 12
It takes a lot of volunteers to make Snowball Express a success. 55 buses were chartered to haul the kids and their chaperons to the different venues, and each group of buses was escorted by a large contingent of Patriot Guard Riders, as well as Dallas law enforcement officers.
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Sunday, December 13
Sunday was a relatively slow day for the sewing room crew. The kids and chaperons were out "on the town" most of the day.
We drove to Tyler to pick up a computer that had been repaired at Best Buy, and then went to Mineola for the annual Christmas concert by the Lake Country Symphonic Band. The theme for the concert was The Ugly Christmas Sweater Concert, and several band members were in a tight scramble for first place.
With Santa standing by at intermission, we decided we'd have our Christmas portrait made this afternoon. We liked it so much that we turned it into our Christmas card.
When the concert was over, we returned to the house for a few minutes and then hightailed it back to Dallas (stopping for some Panda Express for takeout dinner), and a quiet evening at the hotel.
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Today was a full, full day of meeting and greeting the children and their surviving parent. As far as the volunteers were concerned, we looked like classic manic-depressives, alternately laughing and crying as the children and their parent (or grandparent) told their stories...beautiful children who have stories to tell of how the horrors of war took away a mother or father, but who are determined to rebuild their lives, because if they don't, the enemy has truly won.
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Tuesday, December 15
Today was another busy day in the sewing room as children who had been so busy with the many other activities came by to get new vests or upgrade their old ones.
A common theme of Snowball Express is making new friends and renewing old friendships. Some of the 18-year olds who are aging out of the program this year have been at all ten Snowball Express gatherings and are now "graduating" with their friends they met ten years ago.
We had the opportunity to meet lots of special people, and hope our new friendships will continue to grow through future Snowball Express gatherings.
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Wednesday, December 16
After an extremely emotional few days, it was time for the Tenth Snowball Express to come to an end...a time for hugs, tears, smiles, and promises of, "I'll see you again next year!"
And then, it was time to load the car and begin our own journey back to Mineola, but with a decidedly different view of what this Christmas will mean for those children who lost a parent during one of our wars during the past 12 months...it is personal now, and always will be.
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Thursday, December 17
We had another trip to Tyler and the dermatologist today as Jim had stitches removed from the previous surgery on his temple, followed by surgery on his scalp, where a large tumor had developed. The places that were mostly healed were looking good, but the visible results of the surgery this morning were kind of ugly by anyone's standards.
After all that, there was nothing to do but hurry home, have Jim take some pain killers, and head for bed.
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Friday, December 18
Jim slept in until after 9:00 this morning. He was feeling much better than he expected, so he took some Tylenol and then we drove out to Yantis to visit LuAnn and have lunch at the community center. Since it was Friday, we also got some frozen take-out meals to take back to the house for the weekend.
This afternoon we drove over to check on our ladies, Addie and Jenny, to get them caught up on our latest adventures.
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Saturday, December 19
After all the hustle and bustle of the week, we decided to make this day one of little, if any, activity. It was good to just take a day off from everything and kick back and relax.
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Sunday, December 20
Happy 71st Birthday to Jim!!! Now he's as old as me again (except for those three pesky weeks from the end of November until today).
We went to the morning service at Yantis First Baptist Church, then returned to Mineola for a birthday lunch at The Jalapeno Tree, where we enjoyed some great Mexican food.
We returned to Yantis this evening for a special candlelight service and children's Christmas story, led by Pastor Craig and his wife, Stacy. We even got asked to be readers during the service.
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Monday, December 21
Happy 42nd Birthday to daughter Heather Dondis in Rischardson, Texas!!!!
We finally got into high gear to prepare for Christmas. We both took turns working in the kitchen to bake some Christmas goodies and more jalapeno bread, taking a little time out to make a run to the post office to do some last-minute package mailing.
Cousin Maddey and Jarhett came over for a short visit this afternoon. My, it was amazing to see how much Jarhett has grown since we last saw him!
We also received a self-portrait from grandson-to-be Kaiden in today's mail...a self portrait that Kaiden drew for us. Until the formal adoption is completed, we won't be able to show standard photos of Kaiden, but we felt the self portrait deserved a place in our journal.
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Tuesday, December 22
The Christmas season was in full swing around our house again today. Christmas DVD's were cranking out the sounds of the season as we wrapped presents (we've developed quite an assembly line for that project), baked bread and other goodies, and even had time to make another run to the post office to mail out the really last minute packages.
Barbara has been looking at Pinterest Christmas ideas lately and came up with a couple of great ones that we put into play today. One was for using wrapping paper to make our own gift bags, another was for a candy cane sleigh to hold gift cards, and yet another was for a currency "pizza," complete with a Pizza Hut box, that we used to make Alexander's birthday gift.
This evening a group of church friends came to Mineola and we enjoyed food, fun, and fellowship at the Wingdingers restaurant not too far from the house. A good time was most definitely had by all!
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Being ever practical, we treated ourselves to an early Christmas present by going to Natural Nails and letting Leslie work her magic to make our hair presentable for the season
Then, we hit the road to Richardson for Christmas #1 with Heather, Andy, Alexander, and Abby. In addition to the early Christmas, we worked in an early 12th birthday celebration for Alexander.
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Thursday, December 24
Today was a day of baking and cooking to get ready for future Christmas celebrations. After finally getting the kitchen straightened up, we went to Yantis for the Christmas Eve service at our church.
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Friday, December 25
Merry Christmas, Everyone!!!
Our Christmas celebration was certainly less than traditional. To begin with, we slept in just as long as we wanted. No one was going to be coming to the house today, so when we finally got up and around, we cleaned house...not traditional, but much-needed after spending the majority of our house time in the kitchen the last few days.
We went over to my Aunt TJ's house for a family Christmas. As always, the food and family atmosphere was a highlight of the season. (Disregard the label on the pic...this is definitely TJ's home...not Angela and Ladd's...oops!)
Ladd and Logan gave us one of the best possible presents when they came over after lunch and helped raise and stabilize our little tool shed in the backyard. The shed was a casualty of a monster gust of wind while we were on our Taz trip, and this was the first opportunity we had to get it back in place.
This evening we got to spend some Christmas Face Time with Mike, Kelly, Ava, and Jack, who waited until tonight to open our presents so we could see them.
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Saturday, December 26
Ryan, Leah, and Kaiden came over from Burleson for Christmas #3 with us today. This was Kaiden's first Christmas with our family and we tried to do it up right. The rules of the foster care/adoption limit what we can do in regard to photographs including Kaiden, so we did the best we could to show that he is part of our family.
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Sunday, December 27
Happy Anniversary to Leah and Ryan McQuitty!!!!
Happy 12th Birthday to grandson Alexander Dondis!!!
We headed off to church in the rain this morning, but about the time we got outside of Quitman toward Lake Fork, we ran into a monster storm cell. We couldn't see the road in front of us and the car started to hydroplane, so we turned around and went back home to spend the rest of the day inside while the storms raged. We found out later that the highway between Lake Fork and Yantis had been closed, so we couldn't have gotten to church on time anyway.
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Monday, December 28
We had planned to have a family Christmas luncheon at our house today, but circumstances got in the way. Instead, Ladd and Angela came over for a visit for a few minutes this afternoon.
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Tuesday, December 29
We went to the local tax assessor office to get the car registered for the next year, and then drove to Greenville for Christmas #4 with Heather, Andy, Whitney, Jim, Alexander, Abby, and Jimmy Jim. Whitney, Jim, and Jimmy had driven down to Richardson for a visit with the Dondis family, We were fortunate that we could all meet at Cracker Barrel in Greenville for a family gathering.
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Wednesday, December 30
No Christmas today...just worked around the house and then had praise band rehearsal at 6:00 this evening.
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Thursday, December 31
It's New Years Eve!!!!!
We wrapped up 2015 with a lot of activity. First, we had a trip to the dermatologist in Tyler for a final check-up and the proclamation that I was free of cancer. All the surgeries had healed nicely and I only had to schedule a follow-up appointment for sometime in March to see how things are going.
We drove out to Yantis to deliver jalapeno bread to some of our church friends and then stopped by the community center to eat lunch with Jerry and Diane Nickerson. Since it was Friday, we even got frozen lunches for the weekend...a real bonus treat.
Back at the house we settled down to doing not much of anything. We had some New Year's Eve Facetime with Mike, Kelly, Ava, and Jack...
And then made a couple of traditional phone calls to Max Johnson and Gary and Joyce Whitaker before going to bed early and being serenaded by fireworks exploding around the neighborhood.
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New Years Eve greetings from Mineola, Texas,
Jim/Dad/Gramps and Barbara/Mom/Grams/Gramsy
