While we were in church this morning, snow started coming down vigorously.  I regretted that I had not worn my boots.  It has snowed about 4 inches this afternoon, and here is a picture of me with Brittany and Brandon playing in the snow.  (I guess I am not really old after all.)

We are here in Laramie, Wy, at our daughter Mandy's.  We had excellent traveling weather--clear skies and not too cold.  They were having unusually warm weather here, highs in the 40's.  That is over now.  It is about 15 degrees as I write this at 10 pm.  There was a little snow today, just enough to put white stuff on our car.  On our trip here, we noticed that in spite of the many times we have traveled the same roads to get here over these 16 years (since Mandy married), we find new things or things of interest along the way.   And we both love road trips!

Immediately after I recovered from the church Christmas program, I was part of the Senior Adult Community Choir's Christmas program.  This choir makes this old woman feel really young.  Unfortunately, many of the women's voices have a lot of wobble.  (not the men, however.  Not fair)  We sang at the Old Town Theater, which was the only place in town to see a movie when I went to school here.  Now they have plays and special performances like ours.  The leader played his clarinet with "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree".  He tells a lot of stories; he seems to have played backup for a lot of famous people.  The other day he was telling about when he met both President Bush 41 and President 43 before either of them was president.  Anyway, he has heard good things about our performance and has already been asked for us to do it next year.  Doug didn't think the performance was bad, but he didn't think it was all that good.  I guess he has been spoiled by attending all my concerts with the Houston Choral Society.

Before we went on that cruise, we spent the night in Galveston.  It was eerie to see the change.  Many things on the seawall looked fine, but all of the piers that used to stick out in the water are heavily damaged.  There are still many debris piles and some boats stuck on land.  We drove down the road where most of the newer beach houses were.  Many looked undamaged from the outside, but the  "view" didn't look right.  The dunes that used to block the beach from the residences are gone.  Older houses are greatly damaged.  When we drove off the seawall to where actual residents live, things looked really bad.  Work was still being done with debris still in front of their houses, as I mentioned before.

Here you see an example of one of the houses that seems virtually un-repairable.

And here is a grounded boat.

December was a busy month, especially for me. After having a wonderful Thanksgiving here at our house (with Cindy & family, Jeff and Laura, my Aunt Martina, and my cousin Larry & family), we took a short cruise to Cozumel.  We didn't do anything exciting, but I really love being on a cruise. However, we don't want to go on a Carnival cruise again. I guess we were spoiled by Royal Caribbean. After we came home, I jumped into dress rehearsals for the big Christmas production put on by our church. It was so much fun.  I have never been part of a Christmas program like this.  This picture shows an Elvis "impersonator" lip syncing to Jingle Bells with us singing behind him.  I don't think you can see me in this picture but I am on the far left back of the stage.  We sang some secular songs, and then showed the birth of Jesus to the cross and resurrection. We did 5 performance, and hundreds of people came.