Christmas Party with the Club Friends

It's Tuesday night and I didn't go to the MTC, which seems kind of strange. Steven went by himself because I had my annual Christmas party with my Aesthia club friends. It was a lot of fun. We met at 5:30 at the Riverside Country Club for dinner. All eleven of us active members were there, plus our two inactive members (Pat Petersen and Ann Sumner), so we had thirteen in all. Before dinner, we assembled our gift baskets to take later to Sandy's in-laws, the Dallins, and to Edna Nelson, an older widow whom most of us in club know from the "old days" in Oak Hills. We did a third basket for Ann Snow to take to her mom in Salt Lake tomorrow. The baskets are for the Twelve Days of Christmas, with one gift to be opened each day until Christmas. My donation to the baskets was a snow globe nativity, to open on Christmas Eve.

Dinner was really nice. I had poached orange roughy served on jasmine rice in a coconut lime sauce. Does that sound good or what? It was delicious, something I would definitely have again. It was garnished with some shredded carrots and thinly sliced lime-marinated cucumbers. Yum! During dinner we gave Colleen Hanks a Willow Tree figurine titled "Mother and Daughter," since her mom, Vera Millett, just passed away. Colleen loved the figurine. She read a thank-you note, written by her mom last year after we visited her with a gift basket. We were all glad that we had been able to visit her last year in her lovely home.

I did the favors for the party again this year. I found some cute, tall Santa figurines at Evans Gatehouse. I wanted thirteen, but they only had twelve that we could find. Their inventory list showed thirteen, but we couldn't find the thirteenth one. So I got a cute little nativity set which cost the same as the Santas. I thought if all thirteen of us show up, then we'll need the extra favor. Sure enough, all of us were at the dinner. Julia and I worked out a little trade beforehand. She said she would actually prefer the nativity set over the Santa, so that was her favor. But we just had the Santas on the table and they looked very festive. No one knew that we were short one Santa and that Julia's favor was different. I didn't want Ann or Pat to feel bad like they shouldn't have come or something. So, all in all, everything worked out. Edna was thrilled to pieces that we would remember her with a visit. She said, "This makes Christmas for me." The Dallins were also very happy with our visit. They told us about their early courtship and marriage days during World War II. It was just a very nice evening.

Steven got along well at the MTC. The devotional speaker was Elder John B. Dickson, of the Seventy. After the devotional, Steven met with the new district, District F, that came in last week. Two of the elders in District C (from the group of 19 that came in a month ago) were scheduled to leave for the Dominican Republic MTC this Thursday, but Elder Lewis broke his foot on Monday. So his departure plans are on hold. His companion, Elder Albers, will leave as scheduled. That is the second athletic injury for District C. Their first week here, Elder Mott broke his ankle and had to go home after surgery. Districts C and B (the 19) have been keeping Steven busy.

This morning Lisa Murdock and I went visiting teaching. Lisa finally had a day off from work at her husband's dental office. We visited Fay Butterfield, Kelli Johnson and Debbie Runnells. Fay is back from California where she was helping to care for her granddaughter who was in a coma after a car accident. She is out of the coma and making good progress. Kelli is scheduled for foot surgery on Jan. 4. Lisa is in a dither with Miranda's wedding and subsequent move to Pennsylvania coming up. It's all good, though.