Holidays in the Village

After spending Thanksgiving with kids and family/friends (except for Chris who was in Afghanistan), we spent Christmas and New Year's in the Village (yes, we're Village people).

For Christmas day, we invited neighbors, Rich and Donna Blasing, Donna's mother, Marcella Redd, and Linda and Jerry Wass to our house for lunch. We fixed a traditional Japanese meal - shabu shabu. We had a great time sharing the meal and visiting while we ate. As expected this was a new experience for Rich, Donna, Marcella, Linda and Jerry, but they were great sports. Here's a picture of Rich, Jerry, Rosie, Bob, Linda and Marcella; Donna was the photographer for this shot. Here's Marcella, Donna and Rich relaxing at the table.
Thanks to our neighbors for sharing their Christmas day with us. It was great fun!

On New Year's eve we went to Tom and Ellie Hubert's house to celebrate the incoming new year with four other couples. In addition to Tom and Ellie and us, the party included Bob and Anna Mackendrick, Karl and Donna Wetzel, and Tom and Sharron Chestnutt.

Here's a shot of the five guys. From left Tom Hubert, Tom Chestnutt, Carl Wetzel, Bob Callicott and Bob Mackendrick:The women are a bit more creative in their pose. From left Ellie, Sharron, Anna, Donna and Rosie:
After sharing a delicious meal together, we played games and waited until the new year came in.We all stayed awake until midnight - yeah us! At about 12:05 we were all headed home to start the new year with some sleep.

We had a great time with the food, fun and fellowship. We hope you all have a safe and happy 2011.

Three Years in the Planning! The RANMA Hanging

The planning didn't really take 3 years. The ranma has been sitting in our garage for 3 years. See - there was a 3 years somewhere in this story. The actual planning, repairing and hanging took 3 days.

Our neighbor, Jerry Wass, helped me repair the ranma. He had the right tools for the job. After the repair job, I did a little touch-up painting. Then I bought hangers at the local hardware store and hung it this afternoon.

Here's the end result:
Now we can enjoy the ranma on a daily basis. Thanks to friend Diane Otten for giving us the correct name for the transom!