These were taken right before we left Rocky Ridge Ranch. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving day.
James and I with hosts Morton and Suzy Jeffrey who also appear below.
Don't know what I was thinking, but I did not remember my camera for Valerie's graduation on Dec. 15. I took some with her camera, and she has some good shots on her blog, so check that out!
So, chronologically speaking, I started working at the Salvation Army Angel Tree at Valley View Mall on November 10, and only got the one day off for Thanksgiving. (This working all day thing takes some getting used to, but you may know that already...) ...so, Aunt Jan drove up from Houston to join us at the Jeffrey's ranch for the big Thanksgiving day. So Thursday morning James drove Vicki, Valerie and Miss Daisy to Baird!
It was especially sweet because we got to be with Sam and Emille and their precious girls as well as Becky, Tony, and boys, Andy, and "Paw and Precious!" 
Benjamin is quite the acrobat on the four wheeler. It is hilarious to be around these kids!!
Aunt JJ loved spending time with these cute kids, including that smooth talking Payton Brooks!When Bailey prayed she mentioned everyone but the Goodes and Aunt Jan but then said "...and thank you for Paw and Precious' friends who got to come." After the prayer I told her we were Precious' sisters and that she could call us "the elderly relatives." She looked me straight in the eye and said, "I'll call you 'friends,' " so there you go!
Valerie and Andy went hunting a little before sundown. They saw some deer but didn't bring home the big buck!We missed Lyndsey, Catherine and Philip, but got to talk to them. Kelly also called in from Benin, West Africa, and Jan got to talk to Matt, so that made it all that much better. Cath and Phil got to see one another in Las Vegas, where they each spent the holiday with the families of their boy/girl friends' families.
We drove back to the Branch Thursday night after the Cowboys game, which I now, post Tony Romo, sort of pay attention to. Jan drove to Lubbock Saturday to be there to see Matt receive his senior ring at Texas Tech and James and I got out the Christmas decorations. He strongly suggested that we toss what we don't use if the Goode kids don't want it...no doubt a good idea, but weeding out is time consuming work, requiring that someone look in every box. We opened one labeled "Mantel Treasures," which turned out to be one I don't think I have ever opened since it has been in our attic. I inherited lots of Momo's stuff when she moved from a house to an apartment years ago. It has a ceramic Santa in a sleigh, 4 pair of reindeer and even a red-nosed Rudolph!
I really like it and would have died and gone to heaven without ever laying eyes on it if JB had not insisted that we weed out the inventory! Can't believe I never remember it at Momo's house, but then again, she really went all out on decorating!
Momo had this geode which she had bought I think in Colorado. She could see Santa in it. Can you? 
This last week was my last with the Salvation Army and I spent it at the Distribution Center. We saw over 100 families per hour distributing the gifts that had been purchased by Angel Tree "adopters" at the malls and various corporations. This year virtually every angel was adopted, so our work was cut out for us. The Salvation Army has worked out an incredible system using a relatively few employees and many wonderful volunteers. I was a really small cog in a really big machine that is very well run. I got the job because the supervisor who hired me has been a friend for decades through Girl Scouts and was hired by the Salvation Army to oversee the Dallas area mall Angel Trees. She had plenty of help for nights and weekends but needed someone to cover days at Valley View. At the warehouse I got to know a long time volunteer who I finally spent some quality time talking to Thursday morning. As she told me how she became involved with TSA, she mentioned the job she retired from, which had to be the Texas Workforce Commission, which evolved from Tx Employment Commission, where I worked about 30 years ago! We figured out we knew each other "back in the day," and she even came to my wedding, so, "small world," huh?
