WHEW! That was fun!

Les and Jenny came home for Christmas. We all had a good time. I know that sounds trite, but we did. We did our annual Critique Of Neighborhood Christmas decorations (lots of brownie points for the guy who tastefully strung green lights in his palm fronds and white lights on the trunks, then had a large Nativity inside over his front door lit from within and framed by the arched clerestory window). We baked cookies and pies and did dishes and watched movies. Les and I chatted till 3 am the first night. Jenny and I baked cookies the next day. Richard and the girls discussed politics, religion, death and taxes. And Harry Potter, books and dogs.

Chant adored Jenny. Leslie told him he was ugly and he stank! He went outside and decided to dig to China to see little Chinese dogs, I suppose. Echo gleefully joined him and they both got filthy. Flint stood by and only dipped his toes in the mud. Did I mention the mud?

Seems the pool guy left the pump on discharge after he left. The pool simply kept discharging water and the back yard was flooded. Chant had an easy time in his digging. Richard (who was the only one home) claims that Chant didn't have a white hair anywhere on his body. Since the dog is predominantly white, I figure he'd been digging for a while before Richard caught him.

He cleaned up nice, though. And the whole dog pack followed Jenny around for a few hours because she kept plopping down and letting them crawl all over her.

Les brought stuff back from her European trip - jewelry, scarves, and bits fo foreign money for the little boy who's father works with me. Daniel collects coins and he loves foreign money, so Les picked up a few coins for him.

Christmas morning was leisurely. I baked and talked and sampled stuff and listened to news. We opened presents at midnight Christmas Eve so we could enjoy the day. That's one of the few times I've done that, maybe we'll do it again.

Monday we all laid around, snacked, watched more movies and chatted with friends and family online and on the phone.

A good time was had by all.