Then on the 23rd we had a birthday party for Bruce's mom who turned a young 92. Here's Clare and Mary Alice with a birthday cookie with candles for the occasion ... and we had a pizza from Papa Murphy's ... which Mom really enjoys.




And then Mom in a great moment opening a present with little Everett by the fire in the background ... 90 years of living separating the two ... wow!

Then three generations of wonderful Moms and baby Everett snoozing.

All in all a really great birthday party for Mary Alice and for the baby as well.

After another Thanksgiving of turkey we decided, with the help of my father, to do something different for the Christmas holiday. He suggested something like schnitzel. There you go. With our experience in Germany Jo-Anne and I decided to do a totally German feast with all the trappings of the old country.

The initial menu included schnitzel, red cabbage (rot kohl) and spaetzle of some sort. As sister-in-law Kerry was the expert on the cabbage we left that to her, then during the week prior, we experimented with various kinds of meat and spaetzle. Here's Bruce creating one of our many mistakes before we learned the perfect combo for the meat and veg.

After much experimenting and the help of German wine we settled on a pork tenderloin, pounded out, with Parmesan cheese breading ... egg and flour coated of course. The spaetzle was the Maggi brand from Germany cooked as directed then put in a dish with a couple of pounds of Gouda cheese and a package of broccoli and then baked. With Kerry's rot kohl, German bread, some red Dornfelder wine with dinner, and ice wine for later, it was beginning to look like we had a menu for the holiday party.

Then on the 4th of December, brother Bill arrived from California and we headed back to Bryan to host him for a week. We all got together for a couple of occasions with our parents and Bill was able to see some of his old friends as he graduated High School in College Station here.

Here's Dad and Mom Rich and Bill with some treats.

The day after Thanksgiving, we piled all the pets and people into the Flying Scotsman and headed back up to Richardson (Dallas) to see Leigh and Brooks as they just brought new little Everett home on the 21st. We stayed at the RV park in Carrollton as it was the closest to where the kids live. Here's Brooks with the new little guy and some nourishment.

oooo how quickly we forget ... all that goes in must come out! It's almost like the little guy is already embarrassed with his hands up.

And then some proud grandparents ... our first ... of little Everett ... really neat!

This is the little guy's first Christmas so it was pretty special.

Leighanne and Brooks had the house decorated for the season and the tree was especially nice; a really perfect specimen.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with Mom and Dad and brother Richard and wife Kerry. Here's Pop making his annual offering of cranberries to Mom; great couple with a lot of life to go.




We had a really nice dinner for the six of us of the standard turkey and fixins, especially with Kerry's homemade dressing. We got the turkey hot and ready to carve from the local Kroger store and made all the rest of the items. Here's Rich and Kerry ready to dig into the meal.