Christmas Decorations, Snow, Concerts and Travel...

Monday, December 1st, was a day with purpose. Time to start putting up and decorating the Christmas tree. Claude wanted to get the bills all done and financial work all caught up. How to do this. One first begins with a biscuit breakfast from Bojangles. Yum!! We stopped by the Post Office on the way home to drop off this year's Christmas cards. Nourished and ready, we headed home to get our goals accomplished.

Decorating the tree is my project. It takes a day probably because I have 50,000,000 Christmas ornaments to hang on its branches. I posted these pictures to Facebook of my day: "Whew!! The process to get our tree up is...well...a process. Today was the day. It is done!! Oh, how we enjoy it when it is complete. Merry Christmas everyone!"

First, you must make a place for the process and eventual location for the tree.

Next two big boxes of parts are laid out with the instruction sheet for the order for limbs.

The parts are put together with only 2 twigs breaking off this year.

Lights, ribbon garland and wood bead garland go next.

The new ornaments gathered in 2025 are grouped. Though we traveled a bit, I deliberately didn't always buy an ornament everywhere we went. Really, there are hundreds of ornaments already.

This year a lavender bird from the Glass Museum in Wheeling, WV, a ceramic bell with Cycladic architecture from Santorini and the Hernando de Soto Bridge & Pyramid in Memphis, TN.

The tree is complete!!

When Claude finished his financial work and started the left over turkey soup for dinner, he headed outside to get a start on the "exterior illumination", which is his area. He still has the lighted garland for around the front door, some tiny white trees he will put outside the Nativity and a big Christmas light bulb that hangs from the shepherd's hook. We are festive nonetheless. 

Feeling very accomplished with attaining our goals for this day, we treated ourselves to Jake's Christmas gift. When we had lunch with him in Chelsea, he gave it to us and told us not to wait till Christmas to open it. We decided to wade through Thanksgiving and its abundance before opening Jake's gift. Claude is a bit pickier about what sugars he wants to eat. These cookies are absolutely perfect. Yum!! Thanks, Jake!

We curled up in our recliners with our bowls of turkey soup and had a quiet evening at home. Face it...we were both exhausted and that is as much as we could muster for this evening.

Tuesday, December 2nd, we had snow over night and awoke to about an inch of snow over the ground with a thin sheet of ice on top. The snow is lovely but ice is treacherous. Scott County schools were closed as the buses don't need to be on ice. 

We decided to take a snow day for ourselves. With Christmas as ready as it can be and all others chores caught up, it seemed like a great day to enjoy having to be inside. Michael introduced us to the second season of "A Man on the Inside" over Thanksgiving. Before he left, he set us up to watch season 1. We agreed this was a great way to spend our snow day. With the Christmas tree lit, we watched all of seasons 1 and 2 of this really good show. Thanks, Michael! We finished up the salad leftovers with a little spaghetti for dinner. It was a great day!!

Wednesday, December 3rd, awake again during the night. Indigestion is NOT fun. Tried to spend a few hours in my recliner before going back to bed at 6am. Slept in until 10am. Thank heavens I am retired!!

I did get some laptop work done and watched three episodes of Northern Disclosure. So happy Jake let me know about that show. So fun to hear the behind the scenes information about how the show was made. 

Thursday, December 4th, I started the laundry and posted the eMail addresses for the missionarie for the ward to send them a little note for Christmas. 

I had the afternoon to myself. I first drove to Kohl's to buy some jeans for our upcoming trip. Then back to the church to practice the organ for about an hour. Then to the ophthalmologist for my semi-annual visit. I finished my outing by driving back across town to Jimmy John's to pick up sandwiches for our dinner. 

About that ophthalmologist visit. My eyes seem to be getting worse and worse. Claude is even telling me to see Dr. Richardson about them. There is definite deterioration in the sight in one eye more than the other. I could read the letters on the wall with just the paddle covering one eye. I was fully prepared to ask Dr. Richardson about cataract surgery. He told me one eye was really ready for surgery for sure. However, he said I should try to correct the vision with glasses first. Then the Medicare will pay for cataracts is needed later on. Ugh!! I was not prepared to pick out glass frames. The nice lady helped me determine what I really didn't want. I picked out a pair and liked them. I will need bifocals so I can wear them all the time. She suggested a smaller lens so the my pupil was right in the middle of the lens when the line would be for the bifocals. She is ordering me a pair of frames and I will try them on to see if I really like them. Once we pin down the right frame, she will order the lenses and that will take about two weeks. I don't expect this process to be done completely until after the first of 2026. Ugh!! I do love only wearing readers but they are not working for all my vision needs. 

Friday, December 5th, was an alarm morning. We love mornings where we don't have to set an alarm bet of all. Friday was the Tapestry Concert at Campbellsville University. It kicks off their Christmas season and is the biggest concert of the year. Time to watch Bailey performs again. They do two concerts. One at 10am and one at 7pm. We opted for the 10am concert so we could get back home and have time to accomplish a few things in the afternoon. 

Andie and Michael went to the evening performance. Bailey was one of the students they interviewed at the beginning of the program. Cool.

I saw two very interesting musical instruments. Bailey helped me know their names. The first is a contrabass flute and the second is a contrabass clarinet. Contra means it plays and octave lower than the regular flute or clarinet. A new wrinkle for my brain. 

They did a great rendition of The Night Before Christmas. The man on the far right read the story and paused sometimes as the orchestra played music to fit the story. 

After the concert, Bailey chose to go to Jimmy John's. I told her Claude and I were both betting she would choose McCallister's. She surprised us by picking Jimmy John's. While we were eating, I admitted to her we had Jimmy John's for dinner the night before. We all had a good laugh and we reassured her we love Jimmy John's. She wanted a shake from Cook Out for dessert. Then we deposited her at an auditorium for her to watch a friend's recital. 

In the afternoon, we got Claude's hair cut, vacuumed, eMailed the Christmas letter and gave my neighbor $20 Kohl's cash which I couldn't use. Then we settled in for a quiet evening.

Saturday, December 6th, well, I was awake during the night...again. I think it was being excited about our upcoming trip. Trying to not forget anything that needed to be done before we left and remembering everything we needed to be sure we packed. Anyhow, I got out of bed and decided to catch up my Blog so that was done before we left. I did this week through Friday. Then would leave the rest until we returned from Las Vegas.

Finished my goals for leaving the house in order before a trip. While Claude napped, I cleared a lot off the DVR so it could fill up again while we traveled. I did doze off a couple of times while doing the DVR cleaning.

In the evening, we went to Rupp Arena in Lexington to see Andrea Bocelli. This was the best concert. He sang. He had a female opera singer perform and sing duets with him. There was an amazing violinist, dancers, a male vocalist and a female pop star. In addition, his accompaniment was provided by the Lexington Philharmonic and a chorus of vocalist. It was phenomenal. 

We sat by a young couple with four children. Her mother offers them one sleepover a year for the kids. They chose this night so they could come to Lexington from Louisville and not have to be home to pick up their kids. Amazingly, he had hernia surgery on Monday. He was walking very gingerly but able to enjoy himself immensely. 

Another lady sat in front of us. She had the cutest haircut. I snapped a picture of the back of her head. Later, she turned around and I complimented her on your great haircut. She was grateful for this nice comment. I asked if she would mind if I took a picture of the front for future reference if I got my hair cut like that. She was very generous and agreed eagerly to that picture. People are generally so nice. 

Sunday, December 7th, was the day we would begin our trip. Cordell, Claude's brother, and Kris, his wife, invited us to join them in Las Vegas to attend the National Finals Rodeo. They had two extra tickets for Wednesday and Thursday evening. We would fly to Las Vegas on Sunday. Monday, Kris found extra tickets for us to the rodeo. Tuesday we attended Potted Potter. Wednesday and Thursday we would attend the rodeo. Friday we would fly home. 

Our flight was early from the Cincinnati airport but it was non-stop. We left in the dark. As we arrived at the turn to go to our long-term parking lot, this car was in front of us. I found it amusing their license plate was 'gamble' when we were heading to Las Vegas!

As we exited the inside of the terminal at the airport, this is the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign. You really know you are in Vegas as soon as you get off the plane. We looked for signs to direct us to baggage claim. Not a sign for that anywhere. Every nook and cranny has a slot machine to entice you to play. We took a guess and turned right. It was the correct guess to get to baggage claim.

Kris and Cordell picked us up outside of baggage claim and we went to The Grandview. It is an enormous site with tall buildings of condos. Kris has one that has two complete suites in it with a door that opens from the hall into an entryway, then two doors, one to each suite. We had a suite to ourselves. We each left our door to the entryway open when we were ready for anyone to pop into the other couples suite. Claude and I settled into our suite. 

Kris thought we might be hungry and suggested a crepe place for lunch. We went to "Crepe Expectations" and enjoyed a savory and a sweet crepe for each couple. The couples would share the two crepes. Really tasty. 

We would spend the evening at South Point Casino. It is next door (across a small street) from The Grandview. They have what amounts to a trade show in their big convention room. It is huge. We walked through it and found the leather vest that Claude wanted so badly. He has talked about and looked for one for a while now. We managed to find a booth that had one in his size at a great price. He was one happy camper. 

We felt a mite tired so we walked to the arena that is also in South Point to watch roping. No cost for this. Come and go as you please. The simply do round after round of team roping. 

Dinner was also in the South Point Casino at the Prime Rib restaurant. While Claude enjoyed a prime rib, I enjoyed crab cakes. Yummy dinner. 

We walked back across that little street and settled in for the evening. The view from our bedroom had a little Christmas cheer for us each evening. 

We stayed up until 10pm. Trying to get on Las Vegas time which is three hours earlier than Kentucky time.