Date: 2012-11-27
From: home

To: Ft. Wayne
Miles today: 0.0

I have been working the last two days on Christmas presents for the 13 grandkids. We do not buy them individual gifts at Christmas...that we do for birthdays. Eleven years ago we started taking all of our kids families away for a weekend. After many trials and errors as to where to go and where to stay as we added kids and kids and kids!..we have finally found the perfect place for us. We go (the third weekend in January) to Fort Harrison State Park in Indianapolis where we rent one of the former officers houses. They have 5 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, furnished kitchen, two dining areas and a big living room. Each family has a bedroom and we all share in bringing and preparing meals...except for Sunday Brunch when we take them all to the former officer's  Club which is now a restaurant. This is also the location of the annual family picture which we con a passerby into taking. It is a job to get all 23 of us in one good picture but we usually manage. The weekend is spent playing games, sledding on a perfect hill when there is snow or hiking if there is not, eating and more eating, and playing Bingo for gift cards. It is something we all look forward to each year. Because children do not understand not getting any gifts and don't think of the time in Indianapolis as a "gift", we try to do something each year for them. This year I am making sewing kits for the girls. I took all my material left over from other projects and cut it into small pieces, rolled it up and put it into pint size Ball jars. (Go Ball State, my alma mater!) I also included thread, Great Grandma's buttons, trimmings, and made a "stuffed" lid to serve as a pin cushion. We will add to the boys tool collections by giving them pliers this year. (This sounds pretty "sexist" so if boys and girls want to trade sewing kits for pliers that is fine with me!) Each family is also getting a bird nest making kit which is a wire "cage" made for putting in suet blocks...only instead we will put in yarn and material scraps so the birds will have something in the spring to make their nests with. I cut up small pieces of the material for the sewing kits to get them started on the bird nest kits. (see picture of both above) The neighborhood is in high gear with our big event of the year coming this weekend. Each year we host a Holiday home tour. Six or seven of our homes are open for a Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. We work on this event for several months and it takes a lot of volunteers. Since we have a very active neighborhood with many young couples, it all gets done every year. SOS and I have spent the better part of a week the last two years, passing out posters to businesses in our city and towns nearby. This year we passed out 242 posters in 30 towns. We enjoy this because we get to go to all the small towns and for me it felt almost like being back on the trail! The other big event today was getting the dent (that I put in the back bumper in one of the campgrounds on the trail) fixed...it is now good as new! I am thankful that it was the only "disaster" that I had in 15,000 miles of driving! All for now...messages from our readers are still appreciated.