Once again James put on the New Years Eve show as he hosted the countdown. This year James showed a preview of the year with his school shirts as he plans to be a post grad student at this time new year.

James had some great moments this year as he visited many of the countries in Europe on two separate trips.

Once the countdown was finished, James went outside to watch the fireworks. Because of the rain there were not as many fireworks as in years past, but if you waited (as we did in one of the videos) you could catch the fireworks.

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One of Mom’s gifts this year is a Video Bird Feeder which is tied into her phone via an app. The bird feeder sends a text message when it takes a motion activated pic, but it has to be close enough to the house for the wifi to work so we hung it on the garage. It has a solar panel so it should keep the camera charged outside assuming we get a little sunshine this winter. The first day we had it up we only picked up our neighbor walking to the garage but then we got this little fellow stopping by for a snack.

This was a great Christmas for the whole family as we celebrated the birth of Jesus together and had lots of fun doing it. Mom did a great job with the Christmas meal which included a selection of prime rib, turkey, and (of course) devil eggs.

The gift giving was fun as usual. Dad got more Halloween stuff, Mom got bathroom bombs and kitchen stuff, and James got some items to help him with his youtube channel and also his school work. Mom and Dad also got got surprise gifts from James.

A great Christmas and a fun time for the whole family.
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The kitties are very familiar with Christmas day and we believe they now anticipate it when the decorations go up. Christmas is the day they get new toys plus catnip on paper plates. In addition to the new toys (which come in stockings from the pet store), the kitties also got 4 new Christmas based scratch pad houses which James put together in the back room as a sort of city of kitty houses.

The kitties also got special food which they enjoyed and we even shared a little ice cream with them, which of course they enjoyed. It was a wonderful time for the kitties this Dec 25th and at the end of the day the kitties repaid us by snuggling up to us and helping to keep us warm this December day.
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Dad celebrated his birthday today with a very special cake – a Lions cake – which a few years ago would have been unthinkable but the Lions have been playing great football this year despite having a large amount of injuries on their defensive side of the football. So Dad was very happy to see the Lions cake and hopefully the Lions can continue to win despite the injuries.

The ice cream was Mackinaw Fudge because Mackinaw is one of Dad’s favorite places to visit in the summer.

Dad got alot of great gifts this year, many of which were Halloween animatronics which made the day interesting since his birthday is so close to Christmas.
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We met up with our VIP camp friends at Fantasyland and had a very fun time. We have gone here the last several years and it never fails to amaze or entertain. The most popular exhibit is (as you may have guessed) is the Santa photo where kids and adults get their picture taken with Santa. James showed Santa his report card and asked for a scholarship to college and gift cards to Bubba’s and Texas Roadhouse, his favorite restaurant.

We also visited the train display upstairs which was founded by Dad’s old baseball coach, Mr Nick. They have a few pics of Mr. Nick that I took a picture of. Anyone who went to St Alberts would know who Mr Nick is.
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We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We ordered the turkey precooked from Kroger and that took some of the pressure off Mom Thanksgiving morning. We had turkey, stuffing, potatoes, deviled eggs, bean, cranberries, and a very good squash item that tasted wonderful and included bacon. We all settled in to eat and watch the Lions game and they finally won a game on Thanksgiving for the first time in 8 years.

After the Lions game the focus was on swapping out the Thanksgiving decorations (including the last of our blow molds, the light up turkey) and began the transformation from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Later that weekend we got the biggest surprise of all when Michigan beat a 3 touchdown favorite Ohio State team at Ohio State.

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