Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! It’s a wet Christmas for us and will be all day long.

We have had a wonderful Christmas today and I hope you have. I won’t spend much time on our Christmas activities at this writing but focus more on what’s happened all month with us.

STORMS
Is winter really here? It’s warm--short sleeve shirt weather, even shorts. Oh, we’ve had a few cold days, but for the most part warm weather prevails. This December is the second warmest on record for Nashville. Again I ask, is winter really here?

We had a storm packing high winds to hit the weekend before last (back on the 13th, I think), and Wednesday evening we had a band of storms move through Middle Tennessee. We were under the gun here at our house, but that storm cell lost strength before it got here. Other communities south of here were not so lucky. We had enough advance warning that Kenny and Lori decided to postpone their annual Christmas Eve Eve party to this coming Sunday night which was a good idea even though the weather didn’t turn out to be as rough as the forecasters feared.

WINDING UP THE SEMESTER
We all wound up the fall semester last week. I didn’t have to give exams for my classes which made the final week extra nice for me. Jenna was glad to get her dual enrollment English behind her as it has proven to be one of the most demanding courses she’s taken so far. It was two classes crammed into one semester which gave her six hours of credit.

It won’t be too long before we’re thinking about her graduation. East Robertson’s commencement is set for Friday, May 20 at 6:00 and that’ll be here before we know it.

HOOP ACTION
Ben’s team has enjoyed several victories since I last wrote. The boys junior varsity team is having a better season than the boys varsity team so it’s fun to watch them play. (I should note here that DA’s girls are undefeated so far.)

Ben has gotten some pretty good game time which is good because there are several sophomores on his squad. He doesn’t have a lot of points to his credit, but he is still proving to be an asset to the team. Watching him play at this point is like watching a knife get sharpened. He’s getting better all the time and his day is coming.

They were scheduled to play East Robertson a couple of weekends ago. Ben was looking forward to playing against his old teammates. Unfortunately the JV game fell through. We did get Mom to a home game at DA which she enjoyed.

NATORIOUS
I have found out that Nate has a new nickname among his friends at school--Natorious. It seems he’s become a little notorious among his friends for getting into their Minecraft worlds and pulling little pranks which amounted to minor vandalism. He says he didn’t do too much of this because he decided it wasn’t the best way to win friends and influence people, but he’s earned the nickname for himself never the less.

I PASSED!
I took my CDL driving test Tuesday and passed! I will begin driving my bus route when school resumes next month. I’m a little bummed because both of the big buses that I should have tested in were down for maintenance so I had to test in a small bus. This means I’ll need to go back next month and retest in a big bus to get the license and endorsement I’m supposed to have. However, this won’t prevent me from running my route in a small bus. Now, at least, I’ll get paid for my commute and have my vehicle and fuel to and from work provided. That’s a good deal!

(If you’re searching your head here, I’m going for a Class B license but could only earn the Class C at this point because I had to test in a bus that was less than 26,000 lbs. I’ll need to retest in a larger bus with air brakes to get the Class B.)

ENJOYING THE MOVIES
We decided we’d treat ourselves to some movie outings for Christmas and to that end our Christmas has come a bit early. Friday we went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens which was very good. It was a lot of fun to go on opening night as several folks had come in costume. Vicki took a groupie picture of us and posted on Facebook that she was glad to be out with her geeky family to see Star Wars. We were amazed to learn of a couple of our friends who had never seen a Star Wars film.

Tuesday we went to see Mockingjay, Part 2 which is the last installment of the Hunger Games series. Again, another fun flick and a fitting end to that story line.

HARRY POTTER IS DEAD?
Sometimes Vicki hears me get up in the morning and will wake up enough to fill me in on some bit of news or community happening before drifting back off to sleep. One recent morning Vicki woke up to tell me that Harry Potter had died.

We got a good laugh later when Vicki was fully awake. We’ve been in a bit of a show hole in that we are watching the entire series of M*A*S*H on Netflix. I think we’re in season 8 right now. Harry Morgan, who played Col. Sherman T. Potter on the show, passed away on December 7, 2011. Vicki had seen something online about Morgan’s death and in her groggy state gotten more than one wire crossed when she passed along the news to me.

FULLY FUNDED
My daughter is one industrious girl. As you know, she is signed up to return to Haiti in February. She knew she wanted to go back when she got home from the last trip so she’s been working hard to save her money. I mentioned last month that she would be selling pies and other treats as a fund raiser. Now some 20 pies and 1500 (yes, fifteen hundred) peanut butter balls later (in addition to all the prepackaged items she resold) she is fully funded and ready to go! I am very proud of her.

Joe