Christmas Eve 2012

I am just going to say right now that I don't have the software to fix some of the color in these pictures or maybe the knowledge.  Some are a bit blurry because in the excitement of the evening I didn't hold the camera still or my subjects weren't still.  I still added them in because they showed what I wanted to show.  End of disclaimer!

We attended church on Christmas Eve.  It was the early children's service and it was wonderful.  What a good job our pastor did sharing the Christmas story in small chunks and involving the children.  All the children had a stick with a character on the stick.  Mary and Joseph, the shepherds , the wise men.  The pastor would call a group up that had those characters and the pastor (Jeremy) would tell that part of the story.  Older children read parts of the Christmas story aloud too. Lots of carols.  It was beautiful.  

I wish I had one of these scrolls for my front yard.  I did find a small sign that I put in the yard that says, JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

Pipe organ is so glorious when it is played!

We got a few Christmas carols from the children.  Precious, so precious!

Look to the upper left.  Silent Night.

Mike captured this photo of the candles lit while we sang Silent Night!

We had an invitation to join Justin's (our son in law) side of the family for a Christmas Eve dinner.  This is Justin's mom, Julie with the man of my dreams, Mike!

Kristin and Jade (Justin't brother) looking at the pictures from the ski trip to Canada.

I don't think I am going to try and identify ever person.  Will cousins be OK?  I hope so because it would take a long time to say which family they belong to.  24 people at the festivities.

The pre dinner snacks.  The Kilgores have a huge, beautiful house where every one can spread out and everyone was in the kitchen.  Well, almost everyone.  The kids were playing all over.  Joyful sounds of laughter!

This is Tanisha Kristin's sister in law.

Three beauties.  Kristin, Brande, Tanisha.

Lucy did not want me to take her picture.  Usually she is a poser but not this time.

With help from her cousin I was able to snap a picture.  Beautiful girls.

Layne giving me a Christmas smile!

Justin and his sister Brande.

AHHHH!  The only Gleasons at the party.  We were honored to be invited!

Justin, Mike, Kristin, and Jackie.  Kristin's hair is naturally curly.  Love it!

Justin's dad, Jeff (one of the hosts) and Jason getting the slicing done.  I have never seen so many men in the kitchen.  It was awesome.

A lovely cousin.

All the cousins at the dinner table.  Love the head in the bowl.  Good thing there was no food in it.  Looks like one was wanting food thrown in his mouth.

I little more peaceful picture.

Lucy.  I tell Layne and Lucy all the time that they are precious and then ask them if they know what that means!  We are very, very special.  Right on girls.

Jeff and Julie our host and hostess!  Thank you for sharing the evening with us.  We appreciate it and it was wonderful with all the family and children around.  Priceless.

Yum!  King crab and prime rib roast.

Cousins with the doggie.  I can't remember the dog's name.

Clean up time.  More men plus the women in the kitchen.  Obviously, I wasn't helping just taking pictures.

More cousins!

Lucy tongue in mouth not sticking out.  I can show her that picture when she is with her boyfriend at 18 years old.  Truthfully, I love the silliness. It shows joy.

All the cousins, about 11 of them draw names and get each other jammies.  It is a  big deal for the kids.  They get to open them on Christmas Eve.  The kids could hardly wait.  Justin is helping Lucy with her gift.

After showing the PJ's off they all rushed to put them on.

Here they are and everyone of them put their pajamas on.  It was adorable!

The love birds, Kristin and Justin.

This was great.  Everyone had to purchase a small gift or ornament and wrap it up.  Then numbers were drawn.  In the past you could open your gift right after you selected it.  Not this year.  You had to wait until everyone was done.  You could steal another's gift but you didn't know what it was.  There was stealing.  I got my taken and I tried to use the aneurysm excuse.  Don't take it away from the person recovering from an aneurysm.  They didn't fall for it!  It was so much fun watching everyone checking out each others packages not knowing what was in them.  I got sort of protective of mine even though I didn't know what was in it.  So did others!  Fun!

The end of a wonderful evening.  Thanks to Jeff and Julie for sharing their family with us.  It was the best Christmas Eve ever!

Bald Eagle Viewing Coeur d alene, Idaho

Majestic birds.  They are beautiful and very, very large.  Every year there is an influx of bald eagles to Northern Idaho, Coeur d Alene Lake.  I think the eagles like the food the best at the lake because there are hundreds of them.  Wonder if the fish taste different in this lake.  Last year we were at a spot where we saw hundreds of bald eagles.  We went to the same area and there weren't as many this year.  Probably depends on the day you go.  They can fly you know so they can go where ever they want to go.  There were plenty for viewing today though. We take pictures with a small camera.  We have a great spotting scope so when you see a circle around the pictures we put the camera up to the scope.  Some pictures are perfect and some are blurry but they are all fun to look at.  First stop was Wolf Lodge Bay. You can click below to compare the pictures from last year.  Be sure and come back and see these too if you click.

Last Year's Blog Post of the Bald Eagle Adventure

We took some pictures without the scope to show the area they land in.  Pretty isn't it?

This is a little blurry and it was done with the scope and camera.  Love seeing the birds so close through the scope.

This is a young bald eagle.  How do I know?  The ranger last year said they aren't born with the white feathers.  They get those as they get older.  I wonder if it is like getting gray hair for us? I love the blue around this picture.  Have no idea how it got there but I like it.

 Mike took the pictures through the scope and I did the editing. Nice job Mike!

We found these nice people to help us with spotting the eagles.  Chrisanne ( I am sure I didn't spell that correctly, sorry) and Darlene.  We would drive to one place then stop and take pictures.  Pack up and go to the next place a few seconds down the road and do it over and over.  Mike is probably pointing out an eagle that was flying over the lake to fish.

 Up in the trees! There we several on this stop.

We drove a bit farther down the lake and found this guy sitting by himself/herself on a log.  By the time we got the scope out the eagle decided to go fish but I got a good shot with my little camera.

 Check out the reflection in the water.  Cool.

 Feathers, you can see this eagles individual feathers.  Nice shot Mike.

This is a distance picture of the eagles below!  This was at Higgins Point.  It was the only eagle we saw there.

Our new tradition after eagle watching is to go someplace for eats afterwards.  We found this place off the beaten trail a bit.  It wasn't right downtown in Coeur  d Alene.  It was off the freeway exit we took to get to Higgins Point.  It was jam packed so we figured it must be good.  All the employees there said, "Merry Christmas," to us.  I loved that!  Food was good too.  We had to have a second breakfast because it was before noon.

 Mike's traditional silly food picture.

 I decided to join in this year but I didn't have food hanging out of my mouth.  I do have some food between my teeth but you don't have to try and find that!

This is the outside of Michael D's Eatery, the restaurant where we ate.  Sometimes these little small places are the best!  We had a great time hanging out with each other.  I am pretty sure we love each other a lot.  That is a great thing.