Christmas in Florida - Merry Christmas to y'all!!!!

This is a sunrise over Engineers Lake.

The same sunrise but you can see how curly the Spanish moss is.

This is part way through our walk. 

What a beautiful sun it was that morning!

I may have sent this before but you know me ..... I can't remember.

These are banana trees that have been killed in the frost.

They will come back again next year. 

They always grow up from the root each year.

What a big beautiful Oak tree.

I don't know why the moss grows in some places and not others.

Macadamia Nuts

This is the Macadamia Nut Tree.

Small but it will grow.

These are the flowers that we got from Sherwoods for Christmas.

I love them!!!

This is Sister Summerhays (President's wife) and Elder Mott (office Senior Elder)

Relatives!!

Elder and Sister Leavitt

They are here with CES.

These are Elders that were with us on Christmas Eve

The Elder on the left is Tongan and he sang.  What a beautiful voice he has.

The other Elder is the one that had his Stake President ask him what he wanted to be blessed with when setting him apart and he asked him to bless him to not be afraid.

He sang and accompanied himself.  He's good!

He sang "O Lord, My Redeemer"

He couldn't get the last chorus in because he was weeping but he played through to the end.

It was a spiritual moment for sure.

From the Left:  Elder LaHoyas (AP), E/S Chambers, S/E Mott (both office couples), I don't know his name and Elder Johnson (AP)

President Summerhays with his gag gift from Elder Mott.  Elder Mott is so funny.  Sister Summerhays is laughing at the side.

These are pictures on Christmas Eve of a community in Tampa that get together

 and decorate the whole 3 or 4 blocks.  

They have little brown bags with candles in them to light the sidewalks and driveways.

Notice how they decorate the tree trunks.  

What else can you do with a palm tree?

 

Here they have done the trunks of a deciduous tree.

I liked the little gifts on the far side of the house.   

I liked the nativity on this side of the house too.

Here is that nativity up close.  Lots of people have these.

Here are the little deer.  

Some people have a herd of deer on their lawns.

A cute little Toy Train.

I thought the children would like this one.

You can see the brown paper bags in this picture.  

Elder Draper wanted his picture taken by Frosty.

Notice the ornaments hanging from the tree.

More lights.  This is taken from the car so those are our headlights making the bright light.

Otherwise those paper bags look beautiful.

This is the moon on Christmas Eve.

We had an eclipse.

You can see the earth's shadow across the top of the moon.

I was trying to take a picture of Christmas lights but Dad slowed down just as much as he usually does.

I snapped the shot and then realized I still had it on 'night' so it took forever for the shutter to close and this was the result.  It's quite good.

The colors of the brick are the focus for this house.  

There are lots of house with this kind of brick 

but they are in all kinds of colors and some of them are so strange. 

Like green and pink, or navy and red.

Sunset just outside our house.

The sun is almost gone here.  I love the color of the sky.

Their sunsets are beautiful!!

This is a decoration on a ward members step.  They put the white sheet down for snow here.

Sometimes they'll stretch a white sheet across the front of the fence for a snow scene.

These are our new friends.  From the left is,

Kim, Lacy, me & Sherry

Sherry and Kim are sisters.

Oops - forgot to rotate this picture.

Dad says that this is the first robin of the season.  Dec 30th

More sunset

I just kept taking the pictures as the sun moved down towards the horizon.

This is a hedge, I guess you could say.

It is made out of bushes from the palm tree family.

Pretty skimpy, eh?

This is our church building we attend.

More of the Sherwood's flowers.  

They lasted for over 2 weeks and we sure did enjoy them!

They opened up so beautifully!

These elders came for Christmas morning breakfast.  We had fun and a delicious breakfast.

They wanted to keep the Christmas tradition of wearing PJ's for breakfast, except for Elder Rhodes.

He has a little more class than that.

From left to right:  Elders Navarrette (he wasn't feeling very well), Talbot, Rhodes, Wright and us.

Around the breakfast table in our Florida room.  

Down here you call a sun room a Florida room.

Elders Wright and Rhodes are in our ward and 

Elders Talbot and Navarrette are serving in the dependent Spanish branch.

Elder Rhodes gets transferred on Tuesday and we're so sad to see him go.

He and Elder Wright are GREAT missionaries!!

He is going to Naples where Gordon Greene spends his winters.

Gordon already said that he would come up and visit us here.

This is our visit with Elizabeth and Levi on Christmas day on Facetime.

Christmas dinner at the Bishop's house.

Bishop Hopkins is on the right side of the tree.  He is a cousin to President Steve Miller.  The bishop's wife's brother, sitting just in front of me on the couch, served his mission in Brazil with President Miller.  He was an AP and really thought highly of President Miller. The Bishop's wife is in the red sweater kneeling.

The Lamb of God CD is what Dad gave to me for Christmas and the Elders (Rhodes and Wright) gave us the candy Christmas tree.  The toiletries were given to us by Melissa Alcantar.  Her parents who are Jehovah's Witnesses bought it for us.  That's one for the record.

We had a wonderful Christmas here and felt so close to the Savior.  I will treasure the memory of it forever and hope that it may repeat again next year.  We are feeling such love for these people.  The ward is getting the vision and are really beginning to help.  Our new bishop has a great vision and we are going to be so successful here.  It's too exciting!!!!

We missed y'all and are happy to know your Christmases were good too.

Happy New Year to y'all!!!