Was Your Christmas Merry

The Cowboy and I certainly enjoyed Christmas and sincerely hope our readers also had a great Christmas!  We wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year, too!

We had plans to head to Wickenburg on Monday.  Sunday morning I decided we were leaving about 11am and the Cowboy agreed.  He was a bit gimpy with the flare up of an old ankle injury so I drove the entire way.  I scurried around all Sunday morning finishing my cooking and packing.  We left just before 11am and if not for a slow down just on the other side of Tucson, we would have made North Ranch in four and a half hours.  Traffic through Phoenix was heavy but moving rapidly–very rapidly and I just made it a point to keep up! 🙂

Geri had made dinner and Tom and Sandy joined us.  Delicious meal with great friends.  Later in the evening Jim and Ellie stopped by for a visit too.  We stayed in Larry and Geri’s guest house–aka their RV.  Christmas Eve was a beautiful day–sunny and bout 72 degrees.  I cooked a little preparing my dish for the Christmas Day lunch, took a long walk with Geri and Emmi and just enjoyed the day.  Larry and the Cowboy solved the world’s problems.  We also paid Pat and Mike a visit as well as Jim and Ellie–it was a great day!

We have good friends from Montana who purchased a home in Wickenburg–we were married in their Montana home–good friends.  They arrived last week to enjoy some warm weather for a while and we went to their house to celebrate Christmas Eve.  Jill is a great cook and that beef tenderloin was to die for!  It was fun to see them as well as their adult children.  The house is taking shape, they shipped a bunch of furniture from Montana to Wickenburg and it looks great!

 Their view of Vulture Peak

 Jill and Fritz Cooper Jill’s tastefully decorated table.

Fritz getting ready to carve. A wonderful evening spent with good friends.

Christmas Day dawned not so warm but still better than the chilly weather in Montana. North Ranch sponsors a turkey dinner in the Activities Center–they provide the turkey and gravy.  Various people host tables–Geri and Larry were our hosts at our table of ten.  The table folks bring side dishes and desserts.  There was no shortage of food and after eating we visited for a while then waddled home.  Several of the ladies met at Larry and Geri’s and we took a walk around the park–that helped.

It was early to bed for us–we had a very early morning on the day after Christmas.  Geri was flying to Rapid City this morning to babysit the granddaughter for a week–Larry was taking her to catch the shuttle to the Mesa airport and they were leaving at 3:30am!!!  We volunteered to take Geri instead–we were going that way after all.  After dropping Geri at the shuttle location in Surprise we headed out of Phoenix–at that time of morning, traffic was light and we sailed through.  Same with Tucson after stopping at a Walmart for a grocery run.

We are home, unpacked and relaxing after an awesome Christmas holiday.  Emmi and I braved the wind and cool temperatures for a couple walks and I made a pot of taco soup.  Again, we hope you enjoyed your Christmas holiday as much as we did!

Stormy clouds and chilly temps.