I've got coffee cake made already this morning, and this afternoon I have to take my mother in law Christmas shopping. John has injured his shoulder and can't drive or do much of anything so I'm elected now. Mine is done thankfully. Jim's feeling much better and that's a good thing since we had an ice/snow storm here Thursday into Friday. We are lucky--we didn't lose our power but there are communities all around us who did due to the ice. Some won't have their power back till Monday or Tuesday.
In the midst of that storm, we drove to Albany (about 45 minutes south of us), we hit freezing rain on the way down and coming home it was freezing rain in Albany, then about 35 miles from home it turned to sleet then about 20 miles it was snow. Slow going on the Northway--40 miles an hour tops--took us almost 2 hours to do a 45 minute trip......but the concert was worth it. Amy Grant/Vince Gill Christmas show. They sang all kinds of Christmas songs and ended the show with some favorite Christmas carols....
Last night we went to Jim's Christmas party. The sheriff's department has one every year and the retirees are all invited. Much better this year--they had it at a local Holiday Inn--the food was great. You had a choice of Prime Rib, Crab stuffed sole, or Chicken. Jim and I had the prime rib, one of the girls at our table had the sole...said it was wonderful. Dessert was a dark chocolate cheesecake with raspberry sauce. They have door prizes and a 50/50 raffle. We won the 50/50 raffle--just over $200.00. More presents for Shannon......Big Ole Hank won a power drill that still had a price tag on it ($99.99) They also had gift certificates to some area restaurants and stores. There was a DJ this year and dancing. And this year there weren't as many of younger guys--a lot of the retirees showed up which doesn't usually happen.
One more week and I'm on vacation for a week. Going to spend it baking. I made my grammies cream fills during the week and I've always put them on a cookie sheet inside my gas grill on the back porch to chill--this year I went to get them to package them up and put in the fridge and they were gone!!!!! Empty baking sheets and wax paper was all that was left. We finally figured out that the squirrels can get in there and they took them... Over 100 candies gone!!!! So now I have to do them all over again.
Good news this week--Tessie, my friend Julie's daughter (who died of cancer) is having a girl, she's due in May. Ryan is all excited about having a sister. Her name isn't picked out yet but either her first or middle name will be Julieann in memory of the grandmother she'll never know. We are all excited too. I just gave Ryan his ornament that I promised Julie I'd get every year for him.
Not much else happening here. Stay warm everyone.