Thursday 12/25/25 Merry Christmas to Everyone

 

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope everyone had a great Christmas!! 

The weather was overcast with a low of 63 degrees and a high of 77 degrees. There was a little breeze that kept it cool.

I got up about 7:30 and got dressed. Larry surprised me, he had all his electronics off the dining room table. Now I can put our Christmas table cloth on the table and get it ready for our Christmas lunch. I put a relish tray together, which had sweet pickles, pepper jack cheese cubes, ham and stuffed olives. I made deviled eggs.

Louise showed up at 8:30 with Alice. While waiting for lunch to be served we snacked on the relish tray and deviled eggs and visited with each other. Lunch was served at 11:30. We had ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked beans, Stove Top stuffing and Texas Roadhouse rolls. For dessert Louise brought the leftover apple pie from yesterday. We were too full to have any so she ended up taking it home with her. We had a super Christmas celebration with Louise and Alice.

 

Christmas lunch

 

Getting ready to eat lunch (Alice didn't want her picture taken but I made her)

 

I do Christmas a little different than I use to, I decorated the house with the ornaments Larry made me and the bear ornaments we bought many years ago. Most people decorate after Thanksgiving and take them down after Christmas. I put the decorations up yesterday and will wait until after the new years. I hung the decoration in both the living room and dining room. I had to be creative around the pinball cabinet but had fun. 

 

Decorations on the china closet and Larry's paper crafting shelf

 

Closer look at the decorations on shelf

 

More decorations on another paper craft shelf in the dining room

 

Decorations on the kachinas shelf and chair by the television

 

Ornaments hanging from kachinas shelves and around the pinball cabinet

After saying good-bye to Louise and Alice I played my games and Larry went back to playing with Home Assistant.

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Easy Street Mini of 15 games. It took me 39 minutes and 54 seconds, which put me in 24th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

I worked out with Synth Riders for 40 minutes. I worked out with five songs twice. They were Never Gonna Die (2:42), New Comedown (3:08) and Hard to Love (3:10), Carol of the Bell (1:56) and Shangri-La-La-La (3:34). On both Carol of the Bell and Shangri-La-La-La I earned a new high score,

 

Carol of the Bell (Christmas decorations as background)

 

Hard To Love

 

Never Gonna Die

 

New Comedown

 

Shangri-La-La-La (Tour of a Miniature Golf Course)

 

After dinner I played six games of pinball, which were Dr. No, Medieval Madness, Transformers, James Bond 60th Anniversary, Goldeneye and Tron. I played Dr. No twice and  came in as high score #2 the seconds game. Just having fun playing pinball.

 

Dr. No

 

Goldeneye

 

James Bond 60th Anniversary

 

Medieval Madness

 

Transformers

 

Tron

We spent the afternoon snacking on Russell Stover chocolates, we received them from Larry's aunt Barbara.

 

Box of chocolate from Barbara

 

In the evening we watched The Polar Express out of our movies collection. The Polar Express is our annual tradition on Christmas night. After watching The Polar Express Larry called his mother (Shirley) to wish her a Merry Christmas and to see how she was doing. When Larry went to bed I watched Twister. I ended up doing 2,000 steps. 

 

 

Polar Express

One of my Christmas gifts from Shirley was a diamond painting called Dog In Hammock. I decided to get the diamond painting ready to be assembled. It's made by Leisure Art and has 39 different colors of diamonds. The fabric size is 17.15" X 14.15" and the design size is 14" X 11". I haven't done a diamond painting in a long time (6/18/25) so it's going to be fun.

 

Dog In Hammock

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 12-24-25 Christmas Eve Celebration & More

 

Christmas Eve

 

We had a super day. The morning temperature was 65 degrees and the high was 80 degrees. It's hard to believe it's December and it's 80 degrees. 

Today we spent the afternoon with Louise and Alice in Round Rock, it's Christmas Eve and we open our presents on this day. We arrived at Louise's house at 2:30 pm and were back at our house at 7:40 pm. 

When we arrived Louise and Alice came out to greet us. Alice wanted me to run around the yard with her but I was busy taking our Christmas gifts inside the house. I put our gifts under Louise's Christmas tree. She had a lot of Christmas decorations throughout the house. It looked very nice. 

 

Christmas tree with our gifts under it

 

Christmas reef on garage door 

 

Christmas decorations on top of book cabinet

 

Louise installed a new echo show in her bedroom to replace the one that went bad. It updated some of her devices to Alexa + and some of her previous commands no longer worked correctly. Larry got the commands to work but it took a little while. It took him longer because Louise and I kept asking Alexa to do something. He asked us to stop. When we did he was able to fix the commands. She's one happy woman.

Louise put a relish tray together with sweet pickles, cheese and pepperoni for us to snack on before dinner. She also had peanuts. While we snacked we visited. When had our Christmas Eve dinner about 4:00. It was chili, Fritos and cornbread. Louise made the chili and cornbread. The meal was very good. For dessert we had apple pie. 

After dinner we opened our gifts. This took us a couple of hours. We received a lot of wonderful gifts from Louise, Shirley and Barbara. Thank you all. 

 

Alice

 

Having fun opening gifts

 

Louise enjoying opening her gifts

 

Larry opening his gifts and having fun

 

After opening our gifts we had dessert. Then we thanked Louise for dinner and said our good-byes. It took us an hour to get home. 

Before going to Louise's to celebrate Christmas I did my housework. Today I had to use my old vacuum (canister and chord in) because my battery operated vacuum battery died.

 

Doing housework

Larry ordered me a new cordless vacuum off of Amazon and it should be here Saturday. They don't make the same vacuum that I have so he order another one. The new vacuum will have two batteries in the kit. This will be my Christmas gift. 

Larry replaced a switch for the dining room light and ceiling fan. Then he programmed it to work with Alexa. 

I played five pinball games. They were Iron Man, Metallica, Monster Bash, Nightmare Before Christmas and Tron. While playing Iron Man I became Grand Champion and Monster Bash I became high score #1. I had a great day of pinball.

 

Iron Man

 

Metallica

 

Monster Bash

 

Nightmare Before Christmas

 

Tron

I played my Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong before going to bed last night. When we got home I played the event, which was Event: Tri Peaks Mini of 5 games. It took me 10 minutes and 9 seconds, which put me in 13th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

We watched a movie on Prime Video called IF. It was a cute movie about people growing up and out growing their imaginary friends (IF). When Larry went to bed I watched Van Helsing from our movies collection. I ended up doing 2,000 steps.

We had an outstanding day and Christmas celebration with Louise and Alice. 

 

    

Tuesday 12-23-25 Workout, Grill Project, Shopping & More

 

Have a terrific Tuesday

 

We had a terrific day. It's two days until Christmas. We had a cloudy warm day. The morning temperature was 68 degrees and the high was 80 degrees.

We started the day out by going to Aldi. We don't get to Aldi too often. We arrived just when it opened, which was 9:00. There were a few people waiting to get in. Once inside it wasn't too busy. We got everything we wanted plus more. Then we went to Walmart to pickup a couple of things. Afterwards we went home.

 

Grocery shopping

Larry did a small project. The gas grill we have for the Minnie was in pretty bad shape so Larry ordered a new one from Walmart. It came in a couple of days ago so Larry decided to put it together. It's hard to get a grill the perfect size to fit in the little cubby hole we put the grill. While assembling the grill he had to modify it by cutting down the handle so it can slide in the cubby hole. 

Larry decided to upgrade the software on the mini pinball cabinet. When he turned on the switch it would not come on. He took the cabinet into his workroom and discovered a blown fuse, he replaced the fuse and when he turned it on the power supply had a loud pop, some sparks flew and the fuse was blown. The power supply has gone bad. He went to the internet to order a new one. This took him a bit, the one he originally used was not readily available and others cost twice as much, the reviews were not great on any of them. He ordered one that should be here Saturday.

While Larry did his projects I played games. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong before going to bed last night. The event was Event: Two Game Tango mini of 10 games (5 Klondike and 5 Pyramid). It took me 43 minutes and 56 seconds, which put me in 17th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

I worked out with Synth Riders for 50 minutes with five songs, which were We Were Young (3:40), Rendezvous (3:53), A Matter of Time (3:27), Sledge (3:54) and Interstellar (4:30). The second time working out with We Were Young, Rendezvous and A Matter of Time I got a new high score. While working out with Sledge I got confused on which control to use so I didn't get Outstanding score by not getting any bad hits. I did get Awesome by not getting any bad hits but I completely missed a few balls. I had a great workout.

 

A Matter Of Time

 

Interstellar

 

Rendezvous

 

Sledge

 

We Were Young

I played one game of Monster Manor on Bounce Arcade. During the game I earned a bronze trophy. I awaken the manor and stunned the manor. I tried to do the spider multiball but the fire burned out. I hit the clock three times and got the jack-o-lanterns. For the first time I got all of the jack-o-lanterns, which gave me the Midnight Harvest points. I hit the banister enough times to earn the Banister Buster points. I had a very good game, that lasted 10 minutes.

 

Monster Manor

I played nine games of pinball, which were Big Bang Bar, Blizzard of Ozz, Dark Chaos, Dracula, JP Space Cadet, Magic Pinball, Space Lord, Tron and Willow. While playing Willow I came in high score #2. I didn't get on the board on the other games but I did some good games and had fun.

 

Big Bang Bar

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Dark Chaos

 

Dracula

 

JP Space Cadet

 

Magic Pinball

 

Space Lord

 

Tron

 

Willow

I did laundry while I worked out and play games.

 

 Doing laundry

 

 In the evening we watched Leonie on Prime Video. It was a good movie based on the life of Leonie Gilmour. She was the American lover and editorial assistant of Japanese writer Yone Nouguchi and mother of sculptor Isamu Noguchi and dancer Ailes Gilour. After Larry went to bed I watched Iron Man 3 from our movies collection. I ended up doing 5,000 steps.