Christmas 2015

Here's a rundown of our unforgettable Christmas........

5:00 a.m. - Roger gets up to bake 24 muffins
6:00 - I get up to bake the breakfast casseroles put together the night before. It's going to take a little creative use of the oven.........it worked
7:30 - leave for Ensley to eat breakfast with six Elders
8:00 - eat breakfast
8:30 - 9:00 - finish eating and get things clean up and moved out of the way so they can play basketball............no I do not participate. I am painfully aware of my limitations!
9:00 - 10:00 - I go in the chapel to play the piano.....for about an hour.......while Roger takes "laps" around the building......just a few........then we sat and watched and cheered for the good shots. (One of the Elders plays for Utah......however, there were a couple who could stay with him pretty well! Lots of three-point shots made.
11:00 - came home and had a nap.......at least two hours long
1:00 - 4:00 - we opened gifts. Richard called. It was pretty quiet. We started watching a Christmas movie we like while the storm outside picked up a little
5:00 - 5:30 (somewhere in there) Pres. Hanks called to ask if we were safe. I told him we were in our apartment. He asked if we were watching the news. When I told him no (we don't have TV) he said it was time to get in our bathtub.........there was a tornado watch........... We are obedient. We pulled the mattress off our queen-size bed and wrestled it into the bathroom where it obviously was not going to lay down flat over the tub!! ALSO!! both of us were not going to fit in the tub!!!! Roger got the extra pillows from the closet (because we are also supposed to put on helmets--which we don't have) and while I sat in the tub (under the tippy mattress) he laid down on the floor (also under the mattress). I found a live stream of the weather on my iPad and we watched while they watched the storm. Very interesting! Next time we will know to turn on the live stream before we pull the mattress off the bed! It's fascinating to me that they can watch the radar of a storm and know fairly accurately where it's going to strike if it does. (It's not really a tornado unless it touches down.......before that it is a funnel cloud.) And it did touch down over in the area of our little branch! Very near a couple of single sisters' homes. I called one, who I visit teach--she was fine but without power. A small inconvenience! Roger called the sister he home teaches the next day and she was also fine. (She was at church today. Stalwart lady!) It was only on the ground a few seconds, so Birmingham is relieved there were no serious injuries.........mostly downed trees and 2-3 houses. It could have been so much worse! That is a very tightly-packed part of town! We spent about 45 minutes under the mattress. I should have got some pictures! Kind of funny........unless, of course, we had been in the path! Like I said, next time we will know better what to do. And we will have our shoes!!!! We were obedient, but that's about all I have to say for us! The rest of the night was uneventful.......sprinkled with watching more about the weather. We've had unbelievable rain!!! In less than 24 hours the Birmingham area had roughly four inches!!!!! There was flooding everywhere! There are pictures of roads completely washed out, some partially, and many covered with water so you can't see what it's like underneath! The whole northern part of the state is very soggy or drowned!! As I've said before........I don't know where the water goes! We went to Ensley yesterday for a baptism and came home through Vestavia Hills. There is evidence that the storm drains were full and some running over, but the water is all gone now. And where the grass was squishy yesterday, it's not at all today! And no mud like we have at home! Interesting.............
7:00 - 8:00 - we visited with the family at home with facetime. Love that!!! It was good to see them and talk with them. 
I have no idea what time it was when we finally called it a day and went to bed.......after checking our weather radio and re-setting it so it will now alert us!! And did alert us several times about flash flooding throughout the remainder of the evening.

I'm going to leave you with something dear to my heart...........the missionaries of the Alabama Birmingham Mission are "Steadfast in Christ"..........Lisa helped me design and get these shirts made for the grandchildren, then had them make this video for me. I LOVE it!!!!! Thank you!! All of you for doing this for me!!!

IT WORKED!!!!!! ..............maybe.............But there are all of them but two! makes me homesick! I love you guys!!!