Kay bought a Christmas tree and she erected it in the sunroom on Monday.  A turkey was smoked in the Big Green Egg on Wednesday, and it turned out beautifully.  After cooling, it was deboned, and a smoked turkey/sausage gumbo was made—the roux is the tricky part as it has to be constantly stirred over medium high heat WITHOUT burning. Kay made cheese logs and cookies for the “kids”, i.e. Jenny and Brian.

Jenny, Brian, and Harper arrived Wednesday evening to celebrate a combination Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Harper is growing so tall and is even prettier than before.  With great weather, we fished and played outside most of Thanksgiving Day, enjoying our family meal in the early evening.

Karyn, Ridge, and Aker arrived Friday morning, and we were all off to the Mid America Science Museum; the adults had more fun than the kids.

Back home, after lunch and naps, the three grandkids played and played—sharing toys, no fights, and no crying.  It is so fun to watch them have fun.

A new tradition of ours, started last year, is for the grandkids decorate the tree in the sunroom on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  As daylight waned, the decorations came out, and the grandkids had a blast.

After breakfast Saturday morning, the grandkids opened a couple Christmas presents each as a reward for decorating the tree (and for us to watch them open a few gifts).  Jenny, Brian, and Harper packed up and left for home, and Karyn, Ridge, and Aker followed a few hours later.  Wow, what a great weekend!

We were so pleased to host Winter Texan friends Al and Sharon Crawford from near Hamilton, Ontario, for a few days in mid-November (we visited them in August earlier this year), and the Arkansas weather was great during their visit.  Fall is late coming this year, and consequently the trees have just begun to change, though there is little color compared to previous years—hot, dry summer and early fall.  Al and I overloaded on golf, Sharon attended The Bookclub meeting at our house, and we all played bridge every single evening.  We were having so much fun that regrettably, the only photo we have is one of the “super” moon.  Oh, what fun we had, and Kay and I were so disappointed to see them leave.  They will be visiting Portugal this winter; we will miss them greatly in the RGV.

We diverted on the way home from the bike trip (Oct 29) to pay a quick visit to Jenny, Harper, and Brian.  It was a great visit even if brief.

The following two weeks were used to recover from the ride, catch up on medical appointments, and for Kay, to catch up on her very active social life.  Of course, I returned to the golf course!  We also did pre-winter maintenance on the motorhome, including an oil and filter change, winterizing the pipes and tanks, and filling the batteries with distilled water.

On Friday, November 11, I rode the Arkansas River Trail while Kay shopped at the Christmas show in downtown Little Rock.  Afterwards, we collected Ridge from daycare, and he spent the weekend with us.  Saturday, on the way to the Museum of Science and Discovery in Hot Springs, he got sick; we thought he was really ill, but after several phone calls to his mom, she informed us he was car sick, and after a few stops to walk around, we got back home and spent a quiet Saturday and Sunday morning watching action figure shows on Netflix.