Starting with Christmas... Ending with Thoreau....

We woke up Christmas morning to thunder and lightning...  followed by rain, then one heck of a hail storm.  The temperatures just kept dropping.... we got 1 1/2" of much needed rain...  along with the hail....

The hail stones were about the size of marbles...  we have a Scion, which isn't exactly made of the sturdiest materials and I had visions of golf-ball size dents all over the body.  Didn't happen...  but we did ...  sort of...  have a white Christmas.

I stopped on my way to church to take the pictures above....  even today, a couple of days later, there are still patches of white stuff along side the road.

The temperatures have been as low as 22 degrees at night...  and today it finally got up to 42 degrees.

I always get to church early because the choir practices before mass and I love to hear the music.

I go to a very small church in Glen Rose.  I took this picture from the very back pew so you can see that it's not very big.

But it is very well attended.  (as I wrote, I'm always early...  these pews are filled by 11:00 a.m.)  Mass is said in both English and Spanish, and the hymns are also of both languages.

Since we are often on the road I've attended church in many different places...  this is one of my favorites.

After church I headed back home...

Finally ID-ed the ducks I've been seeing in the various farm ponds.

These Hooded mergansers are kind of blurry, but at least they are identifyable.  There were also ring-neck ducks and gadwalls.

But they are so skittish I just can't get close enough to get a decent photo.

Got home and helped Celeste fix Christmas dinner...

We're so proud of her!  She was diagnosed with diabetes earlier this year.  She took control of her diet and total health and has done all the right things.  She is no longer diabetic and has a very different outlook on foods and exercise.  

Bill contributed his part to Christmas dinner....

He opened the bottle of wine.

Celeste's husband is working out of the country at this time...

We all talked to him via SKYPE and wished him a Merry Christmas.  

His time zone is 7 hours ahead of here, so he'd already had his Christmas dinner.  

We talked with our other kids and grandkids...  they live in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, as well as the daughter here in Texas.  So it's very difficult to have a total family get-together these days.

Celeste went back to work yesterday, as did our granddaughter Natalie, who is working during college break.

Bill & I thought it was time to start thinking seriously about our trip to Spain.

Shopping, of course!

We went to a huge shopping mall in Ft Worth.

Got there just as it opened at 10:00 this morning.

Neither of us are big shoppers so this was actually somewhat a rare occasion.

Bill always wears a hat...

Sometimes a baseball hat....

Sometimes his various "cowboy" hats...

But..

He's never bare-headed.

So, today we went shopping for headgear....

We had a lot of fun checking out what is available these days, but... no, he didn't buy this one.

It doesn't show up well, but this hat is actually VERY purple.

He wanted something that is packable, will withstand a long plane ride, and is still "presentable" for versatile wear.

He ended up with one of those "snap-brim" kind of driving hats.

I don't have a photo of him wearing it, but next month I think it's safe to say you'll see it many times.

Next on his list was to buy a couple shirts and maybe a pair of pants...

We kept seeing these "very colorful" items of clothing.  

And, by the way...

That price tag on the far right belongs to the shirt in the upper left.

I don't know how much those pants cost...

Both of us are kind of reserved..

heck, we're downright blah, in our tastes...

I don't think I own anything plaid or striped.  Yeah, I have some splashes of colors as accents...  maybe a scarf or something...  but earthtones are "me".   So Bill kept heading to these gawd-awful outfits to get my nasty reaction.  He even found a color-coordinated outfit (to that "colorful" shirt and yellow pants) for me.

Yeah... when hell freezes over.

Bill's even cheaper more frugal than me, so we both got a big chuckle over some of those price tags.

We did come home with a shopping bag full of goodies....

nothing flashy...  but not exactly our normal jeans and worn-out shirt wear either.

Makes me think of that quote by Henry David Thoreau...

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."

Hmmmmm......

Truth is....   we have a good time no matter what we wear!

That's All For Today!