Merry Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas from Surprise . . . actually it’s no surprise – it’s us – the Smiths

The greatest news of 2008 – soon to be 2009 - is that with all the changes in our society, economy, presidential change, deteriorating culture – you name it, there’s change – but not with God. He’s the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He loves us and that will never change. He’ll always be waiting for us to come to His outstretched arms and embrace His love. There’s always forgiveness waiting for us from Him. And He will never turn us away. That is the best news ever and I pray this Christmas has you pondering His great love and grace. It is the hallmark of our lives.

This year we’re about to say goodbye to is no different than others – we have been incredibly blessed by God’s presence, His faithfulness and His love. One of the things we are most thankful for is retirement!! Yeah! Retirement!We love it and have adjusted to it so well. Our year has been so busy even with retirement. We’ve gotten really well planted in our church in Surprise, have made some wonderful new friends there, gotten involved in our community AND traveled.

We took another trip to Israel with our church from California and it was incredible all over again. We were able to visit a few different places from our 2004 trip and are still amazed at the fulfilled prophecy just alone in the way “the country has blossomed forth.” It’s a very beautiful and luscious country. We also flew to Rome with my cousin, Cheryl and her hubby, Norm. From there we boarded the Galaxy (Celebrity Cruises) and cruised to all the Greek isles and Turkey. At every port, we went on an excursion. One of the excursions took us to Lindos on the Isle of Rhodes. We learned from our tour guide that to this day, Rhodes is 80 percent Orthodox Christian – all because of Saint Paul.

When he journeyed to Lindos, the people were worshipping all kinds of gods: the Goddess Athena, Helios (the Sun god), as well as the unknown god. He told the Greeks that he knew who the unknown god was and He introduced them to Jesus Christ. Rhodes declared itself a Christian country and has remained so to this day. It was a very moving experience to learn this. This whole trip was amazing. We saw tons of archaeological sites:

Pompeii, Corinth, Ephesus, the Coliseum, Sistine Chapel, Pantheon, a beautiful castle out in the countryside of Rome, Delos (off the isle of Mykonos), Temple of Venus, Palatine Hill, Catacombs, Stadium of Domitian, Circus Maximus, Colossus of Nero, The Arch of Titus, The Arch of Constantine, The Forum of Caesar, Fountain de Trevi (famous in the movie, Three Coins in the Fountain).

The Acropolis in Athens, The Temple of Athena Nike, The Parthenon - or my goodness, so much more. It was a fantastic trip; so much history!!

Our families are all doing well and healthy for the most part. Harry’s parents are 89 (going on 90 in May 09) and 87 and CC’s parents are 85 and 83. Both parents have had health issues this year, but are on the slow mend, for which we are grateful. We’ll be spending Christmas in California with the Adams family this year, so we’ll get to see lots of CC’s relatives. We had all of our children and grandchildren here for Thanksgiving. What a blast!! We have so much fun together. Our grandchildren are now: 11, 9, 6, 5, 2 ½, and 18 months. It was a joy to watch them play together: the two younger boys played in the rocks in our backyard; the two girls in the middle played mostly in the house with legos, plastic tinker toys, and had tea parties and the older boys rode our bikes on the walking trail behind our house and around the neighborhood. Everyone was happy and all we had to do was re-rake the rocks when they left ☺ The day after Thanksgiving, we had Christmas together. We have a beautiful family and sure do know it! Our kids have wonderful spouses and everyone gets along so well. As you can imagine, we laughed a lot too!

CC keeps busy with her stamping. She now hosts a group of stampers in our community. They make greeting cards for the servicemen and women to use and send back home. This past year they’ve sent 1,000 handmade cards to Iraq for different occasions: Birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, July 4th (just for them) and Christmas. She’s also goes to a women’s Bible study and is involved in the Women’s Ministry. Harry spends time working on our new travel business - YTB. He’s studying business marketing and learning what makes home businesses successful. He learned how to golf too and has gone out a couple of times with friends. As a couple we have joined the prayer team at our church, making ourselves available to pray with people following the service. This has been a great blessing for us to do together.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and may you rejoice with us as we remember that heaven’s Son came to bring hope to everyone and the glory of the Savior came to share God’s love. These are the greatest of all gifts and they’re free. It is our prayer that each of you will recognize your need for God’s love and accept these gifts--they’re priceless and last for eternity.

Happy Valentine's Day - a tad bit late

Happy Valentine's Day.  I'd planned to have this blog finished and on its way by then.  Didn't happen, so I wish you a belated Valentine's Day!

Greetings from sunny, beautiful blue skies, just perfect Surprise!!!  Wow, what a gorgeous day! This is what the Palo Verde trees look like when they are blooming - spectacular!!

I thought I better catch up on my "correspondence" with my friends.  So here I am  :)  Actually, my daughter, Noelle, has been bugging me to update my blog.  I have lots of time, so what's the problem.  Who knows :) I think retirement gets in the way some times :)

We had the most wonderful Christmas ever!!  All our children and their families were here to help us celebrate our 1st Christmas in Arizona.   We rented a "villa" in our community and two of the families stayed there (Jeff, Lori and Lliam and Noelle, Geoff, Kayli and Hudson).  It made it really nice so that when their babies needed to go to bed, they took them to the villa and put them down for the night.  It gave them time to enjoy being together. Shauna, Derek, Dominic, Devin and Shaela stayed in our guest quarters.  

As you can imagine, our house was rockin'!! and we loved every minute of it.  We had such a good time laughing, playing, and eating together.  Having them all here was the best gift I could have ever asked for.

Dominic celebrated his 10th birthday on the Dec. 23.  It's hard to believe my first grandson is 10 now.  The top of his head is up to my neck. He's gonna pass me up real soon  :)

While everyone was here, we arranged to have a family picture taken.  We had one taken two years ago;  Noelle was pregnant with Hudson, and only God knew about Lliam (he wasn't yet formed and adopted by Jeff and Lori).This time, we got them all and both sons-in-law were here at the same time!!  YEAH!!!

It was very sad when they all had to go home.  I miss them all, especially  my grandkids.  I love having their arms wrapped around my neck!!!  Or giving the older ones zerbers  :)

In January we drove to Las Vegas and took care of Dominic, Devin and Shaela while Shauna and Derek flew to Hawaii to celebrate their 16th wedding anniversary.  We stayed with them for a week and had a grand time.  Shaela and I went to see Disney on Ice and enjoyed our special time together.We took all of them to an old western town and romped around a bit. They had some interesting animals in their little zoo. Very fun!  We also took them to a home-schoolers skating party and had lots of fun.  I even roller skated with my grandkids.  I can't remember when the last time was that I skated - all I know is that it was a lonnnnnnnng time ago.  I only fell one time and was laughing because I couldn't get up.  I'd been skating around with Shaela and she fell and as I tried to pick her up I lost my balance and down I went.  Great sight!!  I didn't have anything to hold on to and one of the male skate rink employees came out and helped me up.  I was a little embarrassed, but hey, I laughed, got up and skated on.   even got to go to one of Shaela's soccer games.  She played goalie and did a great job!

We're really enjoying our new church - Calvary Chapel Surprise.  We joined a Supers Six and have met two wonderful couples.  One of them is getting a new house ready for their move in the end of this month.  Painting with new friends is a great way to get well acquainted. We had a lot of fun, but got the job done too.  We also started attending a Bible study on Thursday nights and have added more great people to our new circle of friends.

We're comin' up real soon on our one-year anniversary of retirement.  WOW!!  We are thoroughly enjoying the relaxed pace, time to walk and get in shape, and lots of activities to keep us busy.  We've even gone to a couple of dances.  It's been lots of fun and keeps our bodies moving too.  Some of you know that Harry and I took East Coast Swing dance lessons several years ago so we know at least one style of dance to use as a springboard for the rest.  In case you're thinking we've gotten liberal or something . . . we only dance with each other - no one else!!

We have some trips planned coming up pretty soon.  Sue and Joe Lopez are coming to visit in late March and we're taking the Grand Canyon railway from Williams to the Grand Canyon. That will be lots of fun and we look forward to their visit.

In June we're going to Israel again with Calvary Chapel Chino Hills.  There's nothing like walking on the very ground where Christ walked.  Our first trip to Israel in 2004 was fantastic and I can only believe that this one will be no different.  We purchased a camcorder so we can record all of the teaching along with the pictures so I think we'll enjoy it more when not trying to take notes that make sense  :)

One last trip this summer will be a cruise.  We're flying to my cousin's in Portland and then the four of us will fly to Rome together.  From there, we'll take a cruise from Rome to Ephesus, Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Naples, Sicily and other ports along the way.  Needless to say, we're very excited about this, being able to see where Paul traveled.

We love and miss you all.  Come visit us soon.

As you can see, we're quite relaxed and want to introduce you to this wonderful lifestyle  :)

Blessings to you all and be sure to write back,

CC and Harry  :)

Going Live with My New Blogsite

Welcome to CC's Bloggety Thoughts. This is a picture of a beautiful sunrise from
our patio. Gorgeous huh!! This is the view we have most mornings :) I had great hopes of getting this up and
running WAAAAYYYY before now. However, retirement got in the way - tee! hee!

We left California to become Arizonians on June 16, were home for a few days and then headed to Oklahoma (by car) to celebrate Hudson's first birthday. We stayed for two weeks and then visited Harry's parents' in Colorado Springs for several days and then headed home to AZ.

We were there just three days and then drove to Las Vegas. Shauna and I hopped a plane for Denver and had a great time together at the Stampin' Up! convention. We enjoyed learning lots of new things. We arrived back in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon and we were off again for AZ.

We took Tuesday to wash our clothes and repack our suitcases, then we flew back to Oklahoma to take care of
Hudson (1) and Kayli (4) while Noelle and Geoff jet-setted to Paris, France. We had a wonderful time with the kiddos, but WOW, we forgot how much energy is required with little ones. Sure glad all our kids are grown up!!

After 14 days, we flew back home for THREE WHOLE WEEKS!! We loved it. Yes, it was warm, but after being in 95 degree temps and 85 percent humidity, we were mighty glad to get back to DRY, 111 deg. temperatures. Sounds crazy, I know, but it is the truth.

On September 11 we headed for California to get ready for our niece's wedding on the 15th. She had asked me to play the piano for it. After the wedding, we spent some time with Jeff and Lori and our newest grandson, TC (Thunderclap - aka Lliam).

Then we took a week to enjoy time with my sisters and mom and dad in Thousand Oaks.
These are the infamous "Adams' Girls." The 2nd picture is a rare moment when we aren't laughing and cutting up together.

From there we headed to the Oxnard Marina where we thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful time of relaxation and adventuresome time in our timeshare for a whole week. We walked 4 miles every day - from our room to the marina and back. It was lovely AND we got to see some very exciting things take place at the marina. On several occasions we watched while boats were put into "slings" and lifted out of the water and driven to dry dock for repairs. It was very fascinating. We went kyacking twice and just had a marvelous time together.

I'm starting to get tired just thinking of all the driving we did this summer :)

THEN . . . we drove north first to my sister Elaine's in Grants Pass, OR. We stayed there a few days and while we were there we had dinner with Cindy Bender and her hubby Jim. Cindy used to work at Biola. It was sure great to see her. Then we drove up to Portland where we finally got to meet my nephew Jake's adopted daughter from Rwanda, Josianne. She's 10 years old and just adorable with the sweetest and most delightful personality. From there Harry took me to the Portland airport and I flew to Spokane, WA and drove from there to Sandpoint, ID while he drove from Portland to Astoria to visit his Aunt Marie. In Sandpoint, I attended a stamping retreat with Donna Bagwell who retired there last year. Several stampers from So. California were there too and we had lots of fun, being together like one big happy family. Of course we stamped!!! What else do crazy stampers do :)

Harry picked me up in Portland and we drove back to Astoria so I could visit with his aunt too. We were there three days and then headed south along the coast, then inland to North Plains, OR to visit my cousin
Cheryl and her husband Norm. We were treated like royality by them in their new, 4,600 sq. ft. home. It is a beautiful home with lots of warmth and character. My cousin is a gourmet cook and health professional and she fed us so well . . . all delicious food. We drove up to the Columbia Gourge one day and then Mt. St. Helen's the next with them. Mt. Saint Helen's was quite an experience. It's hard to believe that thing erupted 27 years ago. There is still a lot of devastation on the nearest surrounding mountains. The trees look like matchsticks just laying on the hillside. The eerie part of it is that the "cone" is growing again and they regularly have earthquakes down below - like many daily. I sure wanted to get out of there quickly.

From North Plains we drove into Portland and started our trip home, but first we had lunch with a wonderful young woman that I mentored while she was a student at Biola - 10 years ago. Barbara Gillete is that beautiful young woman. God has done some incredible things in her life over these last 10 years and it was indeed a joy for me to see her radiant and serving the Lord . . . actually preparing for the mission field someday soon!!

Now we're finally on our way back to our new home. We took several days to do that, with one final stop at our son's home to see TC again before heading to AZ. He's five months old now and growing like a little weed. We love him so much. The heart is amazing with the capacity God created it to love. There's always more love to go around when He gives you someone new to love.

One last wonderful thing to share. I began taking piano lessons when I was eight years old. My parents always had a piano for me to practice on, but since I've been married (43 years now), Harry and I have never owned one. Until now!!
Yep, while we were in Thousand Oaks we drove by Keyboard Concepts and they were having a "store closing" sale. We really hadn't intended to buy one, but the prices were so good and we didn't have to pay sales tax because it was being shipped out of state. So they put it in storage for a month while we travelled north, and two days after we returned home, it was delivered. Harry and I could hardly believe we actually had our own piano, and a perfect spot for it too. We feel so incredibly blessed and now I have lots of time to play and enjoy the beautiful music it produces.

We've already had visitors!!! Jim and Jennifer Richardson from Brea, CA came the end of October and spent four wonderful days with us. We sipped coffee every morning on the patio and played the rest of the time. Great fun!! Jeff, Lori and TC came to visit the week before Thanksgiving. We had so much fun getting TC to make noises and new sounds. Other than Jeff taking a pretty nasty fall while running in the mountains (he needed seven stitches on his chin - ouch!), we had a super time with them.

We had our very first Thanksgiving in our new home. Harry's parents from Colorado and Shauna and her family from Las Vegas have been with us and we've had a wonderful time together. I am so thankful for our family. We have truly been blessed to have them in our lives.

Hope you enjoy this newsy blog. My intent is to let you know what's happenin' in our lives and to stay in touch. For my stampers, I'll also be sharing stamping techniques and ideas. Please let me know what you think of this. Until then, may you always live like today were the very last day of your life, with heaven as your goal.

I love you all,
CC :)