Merry Christmas

To all our friends and family Linda & I extend our best wishes for a Merry Christmas.

While I know that the date of Christ's birth is unknown -- and I also know that our hope is because of his death, burial and resurrection which hopefully we honor and celebrate through a daily walk in his footsteps - it still seems appropriate to remember that angels rejoiced on the night of his birth and the world has changed forever because he came.

So I hope you can take this time to celebrate with family and friends in sharing love, life, laughter -- and yes even gifts -- as a joyous reminder of the most precious gift God has ever given the world -- and as we do this may we alsobe reminded of the compassion Jesus showed and called us to show to all especially those who are lacking in this world's goods.

It has been almost a month again since I last posted.

We left on December 7 to go to Chris’ in Aurora – we arrived home December 18. While there, in addition to spending timewith Chris, Tammye and of course Hunter & Camdyn, we worked on the basement putting up paneling, installing trim, doors and painting. By the time we left the “family room” was in usable condition and looked quite nice (if I do say so myself). The flooring and ceilings remain plus a little bit of finishing along one wall and down the hallway to the storage area. (I have some pictures to update the prior reports on this project from last Christmas and again in April but that will have to wait for another time)

I attended services at Naperville CofC both Sundays (Linda wasn't feeling well the 2ndSunday so she wasunabletoattend). The 2nd week they were installing 2 additional elders to supporting their growing family. They are planning a major addition to start in the spring that make our plans for a small addition of an entrance with elevator for accessibility pale by comparison.

While we were away it was discovered that both of the furnaces that heat our building at PineHill had cracked heat exchangers and had to be replaced. The building was also unusable because of the danger of CO from the one furnace that was left running to prevent freezing. Our sister congregation (Eastside) opened their facilities for us to share Wednesday evening and Sunday services – the new furnaces are being installed and we expect to be “back in business” this Sunday. Big dent in our financial cushion and we haven’t assessed the impact on our renovation plans – but in Sault Ste. Marie you need heat so there wasn’t much choice

We have spent the last couple of days recuperating from our trip and making preparations for a couple of family events to-day & tomorrow.

Sunday morning we head out to Melissa’s in Kingston to share Christmas with her & Alexander.

We had a “gramma” Christmas with Chris, Tammye, Hunter & Camdyn last Sunday. Sunday afternoon Chris & I took the kids sledding – and they enjoyed the new sled we gave Hunter. Linda got a platter with the handprints of here 3 grandchildren. They had gotten Will’s handprint when they were here in September. We also got a GPS based map for traveling – Linda thinks that will be great in avoiding the stress she feels when we are traveling and I want her to check the map when something unexpected happens or I haven’t worked out the route in advance). We tried it out on the way home and it was impressive. I had programmed in our home address and as we drove up to our driveway the GPS lady said “Turn left – you are home”.

Well I need to run --
God Bless
Charlie