Way South Texas Christmas

 

We’re far from most of our family, but it’s a busy time for get-togethers here.

 

Hors d'oeuvres for dinner at the Sandpipers Christmas Party.  Made some ice cream for Sunday’s Christmas Dinner at Gary and Lysette’s/Roy and Kathy’s and got it in the freezer.  Warm weather; people coming and going; exchanging holiday wishes.  Listened to live music at Pub-nite.  Went out by the pool and listened from outside the building.  Not quite as loud out there.  Listened to the rest of the concert from the hot tub.  Went home and made some cranberry sauce and put it in the fridge.  Watched a lot of football today.  Go Broncos (tomorrow).  Maybe they’ll find their missing offense for Christmas.

 

Skyped with our daughter and family while they decorated their tree and opened their Christmas Eve presents (pajamas).

 

Tomorrow we get to open presents here!

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

 

Remember that problem with the wheeled cart we bought to put the smoker on?

 

http://steveandjudystravelblog.blogspot.com/2016/11/here-is-problem.html

 

After a month of vinegar treatments, bleach, and coffee grounds, it still smelled too bad to use, so we had given up and just left it outside to age for another month.

 

Well, after two months, Judy had had enough waiting, so she bought a spray can of Kilz paint formulated for plastic.  It blocks stains and seals odors.  She sprayed the top tray, the smelliest part and even sprayed some of the rest of the cart.

 

That worked!  It doesn’t smell bad anymore.  The wheeled smoker cart is now resting properly under the smoker in the grilling and smoking bunker outside!

 

All is in order.

 

The Winter solstice is behind us

 

From these shortest days of winter we start working our way back to the long days of summer again, and who doesn’t look forward to those long summer days.

 

Well, much as we love summer, we also appreciate the shorter days of winter.  We have our evening rituals that don’t start until we’ve come inside for the day.  If it’s warm and comfortable and light outside until 9 o’clock at night, we don’t come inside and settle down early enough to get through talking, email, television, and foot-rubbing, and still get to bed before midnight!

 

 

December 21st

 

Happy Winter everyone!

 

It has been cold here.  We even woke to temperatures in the 30s once recently.  It has warmed since then.  We’re forecast for Christmas Day weather in the 80s.  We could go to the beach.

 

 

Remember when you were a kid and got the giggles; something was funny to begin with, then it just got funnier and funnier and you couldn’t stop laughing?  OMG that happened to Judy and me last night.  That last little bit of conversation as you’re falling asleep; one of us said something silly and made the other one laugh.  Then the other one said something even sillier in response.  Pretty soon we were both laughing so hard because we were laughing so hard; a perpetual motion machine.

 

We didn’t have any parents around to yell at us to tone it down.  Left to our own willpower to contain the hilarity, it didn’t go back in the bottle easily.  Who knew that could still happen?  It was as if we were both stoned, but to my knowledge neither of us was.

 

No falling asleep early last night; we were awake until after midnight getting settled down again.

 

 

Along the way

 

I always have to take pictures of white-breasted nuthatches.

 

It’s impossible not to.

 

They’re like little mice crawling around the tree.  Somehow they just stick to it effortlessly.

 

Of course they’re pretty cute on the ground too.

 

Unsolved mysteries

 

The mystery digger hasn’t been back.  We think we know what it is though.

 

Our hole.

 

 

Internet pictures of armadillo holes.

 

 

We haven’t seen this particular critter, but our money is on armadillo.

(internet pic)

 

Big diggers.  One must have tapped in to a vein of grubs under the bushes and just kept on digging.

 

They’re nocturnal, and they roam, so we may never see him; or he may never even be back!

 

Our first baby!

 

A baby cactus flower!

Right there, just lower left of center.

 

Here, in the middle.

 

A baby flower!

 

A first!