Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

I'm glad to hear that some companies haven't shy'd away from saying "Merry Christmas" in their ads. It really doesn't make me much difference because we didn't buy much in way of Christmas presents this year. I guess we contributed to the poor economic showing by not buying much at all. Here's what we got for Christmast this year.

#1 Kim and I took the trip of life time to Mumbai, India.

#2 Kim got two newly resurfaced hips!

#3 We survived the whole ordeal! Hallelujah.

#4 I got to see my wife's face painfree for the first time in years.

#5 We took our kids on a cruise for Christmas. (something we had planned and paid for back in March not knowing what was coming in October & November.) We spent a record low on excursions and extras on board.

#6 We got to spend an entire week with our grandson Noah and he really got to know us for the first time. He says Papa pretty good now. He hasn't gotten Mimi out yet but its coming.

#7 Kim walked on the beach in Jamaica and got into the ocean for the first time in 3 years or so. It was very cool.

#8 We dove with the Stingrays in Grand Cayman. Always awesome.

#9 We did buy the kids all a digital picture frame and filled them with pics from home and family.

#10 We get to help celebrate Kim's dads 80th birthday in Muskogee, Ok on Saturday.

It has certainly been an eventful and blessed year for the Ellis household and all in all we took a different tack on Christmas, just being together and spending time was most of what we did. It was as good as I recall. Kim continues to get slowly better all the time. She did an amazing amount of walking on the cruise, all over the ship, off at all three stops, and back home. It was pretty tiring but she did just great. On Sunday back at home as folks were leaving the house, someone noticed she was outside in the driveway, giving hugs, saying goodbye, without her walker, the cane, or anything. She had forgotten to use it on the way out the door. Need I say more. What a memorable year it has been. We thank the Lord for every moment of it.

Happy New Year, for 2008!