. . . A Christmas Moon all through the Week . . .

Each evening off the deck in the west appears a "Christmas Moon" and on Christmas Night it appeared as a yellow crescent in the sky above our arbor. The air was crisp and clear and while on the phone with my daughter I snapped a few pictures, one of which appears in the collage following:

The moon was an orangery color and hung for viewing for an hour or so and then moved on . . .

Then there is our tree, which on Christmas Day we doubled our ornaments through the gifting process. We have room for maybe one more, which we'll work on.

Lastly, we have our Christmas Ham (BA) covered in a spicy glaze. We'll eat the ham probably at a variety of mealtimes til New Year's . . . then when it is just a knobby bone with trimmings we'll make pea soup -- like we used to stop and get at "Andersen's" in Buellton, California . . .

Baby, It's Cold Outside

One of my Christmas gifts this week was the "cool" weather station to the left.

This morning as I was letting Dino outside I noticed just how cold it was -- an even 32 degrees -- would we have a skating rink in the back yard -- NOT.

It is nice as there is a transmitter that you put outside somewhere and that sends the signal inside to the monitor.

It also receives signals from a satellite to update the time and date.

The display is easy to see from the couch and it will be interesting to see if it ever predicts snow . . .

Lots of Truck Traffic this Week

While they weren't the only delivery trucks that made their way to our door this week -- they were the most common.

Since we do so much of our shopping online now versus brick & mortar, one main issue is the amount of packing and shipping material that we have to dispose of . . .

I ordered a couple of things yesterday that they said would be delivered on Sunday -- and that usually means by USPS delivery truck.

Dino never barks at the delivery folks and he gets excited whenever there are packages arriving -- some of which might contain his
food items.

These were some of the Christmas Week items and there were several others as well.

Everything came on time and all in one piece as well.

We added some things to the fish tank (just not any fish at the moment) that's why it looks so clean and nice . . . maybe we'll look for some virtual fish.

I don't think the Boeing Buff is being worn in one of the ways illustrated, but it is unique.


Dates from the Tree

The final week of the year, and there were plenty of celebrants:

Several birthdays come next week, The asterisks denote closer relationships. The anniversaries have both my Great Grandfather and my Great Great Great Grandfather celebrating.

Best wishes to them all!

Dino Enjoys the Week!

Dino got company this week -- and he can stay. We thought about a pup, but settled on this guy. The new addition actually startled us a couple of times when we spotted him on the bed (Dino has never been on our bed).

And while we were opening our gifts we gave Dino one of his -- a piece of a deer or elk antler. He loved it and stayed on his mat and chewed for almost the entire day.

His friend is actually larger than he is, and is quiet like Dino too. The top right shows Dino totally enjoying his chew . . .

The Status of the Search

Well, this week brought some new focus -- a new program -- "Map My Family Tree" -- by Progeny Genealogy:

The above maps are filled with red dots, plotted by the program. Each dot represents an event, e.g. birth, marriage,  or death locations for the folks who are in our tree.

I just started using the program and hope that I can use it to both visually see the migration of our ancestors and to clean up location reference points.

Another new program this week -- "Dragon Naturally Speaking" by Nuance. I have started the process of integrating its use into my everyday online activities. I started with getting the system
used to my voice and pattern of speech.

Eventually,  it will type for me as I speak -- it will be a learning curve. It also will allow me to navigate Internet sites and fill in forms and data with voice commands.

We'll see how all this progresses.

And Finally

That is a bit of our week, we are enjoying the holiday season and it feels like we are on a holiday from work -- just like some of the rest of you -- even though we have not been engaged in employment for some time now.

This coming week we will welcome in the New Year once more -- 2015.  And tonight being Saturday we just might have burgers -- Ham burgers for sure.  Happy New Year to you all! See you in a few!