Merry Christmas!

What a beautiful day it has turned out to be. After a day and a half of rain, the sun has returned, the bayou's are receding and we got to walk on the beach. Yea! Christmas Eve, Jeff cooked shrimp. Jolynn and I spent time peeling and de-viening before cooking. Thanks to Aunt C. for those lessons!The Walton clan headed home on Christmas Eve, leaving Jeff, Jolynn, Regina and I to continue to scrape the floors at Mr. Pat's house. We finished the living room and were headed down the hallway into the bathroom. It was fun to work and talk and laugh! Oh the laughter. Walking out of your shoes took on a whole new meaning as the souls of our boots stuck to the floor. We all decided no sticky mousetraps in our houses! Too cruel!

Wednesday afternoon, Ellen spent some time chatting with Captain John. It was really special to hear them talking and laughing, sharing about life, and what-not. At one point I heard Ellen say "Well, they say that Jesus probably built the yokes for oxen." It was a sweet moment of the day.

We've got a new house to go to once the 2nd half of the group comes in. It's up in the "country" as Ben said. Probably about 20 minutes away from our rental homes. The house sustained wind and tornado damage from Hurricane Katrina, not to mention some shady dealings with a hired carpenter. It's frustrating to hear the stories of people hiring on help and getting swindled out of money and getting shoddy work. We'll be traveling up to Ms. Donna's house on Sunday afternoon to meet her and get a better idea of the jobs we'll do.

The work will continue at Captain John's. I'm happy to report that the front half of the house is completely painted, the scaffolding was put up on the right side of the house on Tuesday night, which was fortunate seeing as the bayou started rising early Wednesday morning. Jolynn and Doug persevered and have the right side primed and half of it's painted Twilight Jungle, with a layer of Autumn Surprise underneath. The left side of the house is completely primed. It's coming along

We had hoped to get back to Ms. Ana's house this trip. Lynn went over to talk with her and Ms. Ana decided to just keep her house as is, seeing as she has out of town guests through the holidays. We'll miss being there but word on the street is there is plenty to do!

Santa stopped by our house last night. It was nice to sleep in, enjoy bacon, eggs and cinnamon rolls and take our time together. We are blessed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus together. Thanks for your support!