Before Christmas, 2019

Our Christmas season kicked off with our Branch Christmas Party on December 6 

with a delicious prime rib dinner.

This is my sweet friend, Pattie Haynes, who is undergoing dialysis treatment but wasn't about to miss our party. 

Our branch has great Christmas parties!

Bob Routsong put together a men's group, who sang a cute song and had lots of fun doing it, 

in spite of their serious expressions in this pic!

Our branch president has a very talented daughter, whose family sang some beautiful Christmas songs.

We decorated even before we left for Mesa for Thanksgiving, because we knew 

we didn't have too long to enjoy the decorations. 

We left to go up north to go with Rick's family to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand on December 20.

We made lots of batches of our granola to take to friends and neighbors . . . 

. . . and sent out our Christmas cards. 

We celebrated our 52nd Wedding Anniversary by going to dinner at a restaurant out in Kayenta 

we have discovered recently, 

Xetava Gardens Cafe.

We had a couple of dishes they recommended as popular and both were yummy!

This salted caramel bread pudding was as good as it looks!

Roger's NAI Christmas party was a dinner at Anasazi Steakhouse, where you cook your own food 

on hot blocks in front of you. After dinner, we played a specially devised game of Yahtzee, 

where we won cash prizes. They always come up with a clever game for their Christmas party!

Chamber of Commerce had the volunteer thank you Christmas party for Fred, Sherry and I 

at Cliffside Restaurant. 

Big changes have happened. 

Pam Palermo, the President, is moving to Arkansas 

and Susi Lafaele has been hired away by the county. 

Susi wanted to take us to one last Christmas party. 

I really love them both and will miss them. 

I'll continue volunteering into 2020 for awhile for the change-over and decide from there if I'll stay.

We couldn't attend the Keynote Christmas concert in the Tabernacle because it was on the same night 

as our last Pathway Gathering and Christmas dinner, so we went to hear them sing at an assisted living center. 

As always, their music was so beautiful!

Our Branch INSTA-CHOIR made me very proud this year and sang beautifully in our Christmas program. 
The violinist I had lined up over two months before became ill, but she asked another violinist 
the night before to play for us and she met early Sunday morning with our pianist and sounded great. 
I had put together a women's sextet to sing, Still, Still, Still, and our strongest lead was also sick, 
so I asked an 85 year old who used to be a good soloist fill in for her. 
Four women played the bells with that number, then a member of the choir spoke about, 
Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful, then we sang it; 
a choir member spoke about, Angels We Have Heard On High, then we sang it; 
then we concluded with Silent Night, with the congregation joining us on the third verse. 
I had phone calls and many nice comments on how we sounded and I was so relieved it all worked out!

These are our Pathway kids. We love them! I made chicken enchiladas for our party and they brought garnishes to go with them and desserts. They love enchiladas and ate two big pans full.

This Pathway Gathering was Thursday night and Friday morning we left to go up north 

for our big trip over the Holidays.

Stay tuned!