A Recounting of Christmas Day!

Our day started out exchanging gifts with Nathan and Kathy and family--via Facebook messenger. You can see me taking the picture of the screen and Woody off to the side in the right-hand corner. The smiling blur in the bigger part of the screen is Joseph after he opened his gift from us--the promise of a new puppy of his choice (within reason!). He is a pretty happy boy. He opened his gift first of the grandchildren and after that they all guessed what they would be given...a cow, a pig, etc! Those guesses were off! But I think that everyone was pleased with their gifts. That's Elijah with his bat..at least I think that I got his picture in...the two pictures of the boys were taken by Kathy. I "stole" them from her Facebook page. When I post pictures they go in only with "code" and I can't see order so not exactly sure what got posted! It was a sweet (candy) and technological Christmas to us from them. Woody got a Roku for the TV (which stopped working on Christmas Eve...another reason that it was a quiet Christmas Eve!). Nathan is going to come over tomorrow and see if we have just pushed a wrong button on the remote or if the TV is no longer with us! The TV is not all that old, but I keep being reminded that things don't last the way they used to! My main gift from them was a new iPad! I definitely wasn't expecting that! I have been diligently working with plugging in information that I want the new one to have that the old one has...not all passwords that I have written down seem to be working...slowly but surely I am getting it set up...probably have had waaaaaaay too much screen time! But finally I am not constantly getting the message that I can't do some task on the iPad because mine is too old! I'm back to being able to watch episodes of food network and Home and Garden, etc. Woody thankfully got another word puzzle book so that has occupied his time while he has been minus a TV! After opening gifts "with" the 9 Dorrells we tuned out and let them have the rest of their Christmas and we settled in for a quite rest of the day. Not expecting an adventure of any sort other than one that was in a book! Well, on into the afternoon, I was talking to Melany on the cell phone and Nathan called in. I told Melany that I would call back and managed to answer his call. It was an S.O.S. call. He and the whole family were stuck in the mud at our pastor's house. They had gone there to pick up chickens that our pastor had offered to them. The pastor and his family were away visiting with family for Christmas. Nathan managed to drive the white van you see in one of the above photos down a hill (Graham said that he told his dad not to drive it down there!) and into some very boggy muddy ground...oops! Stuck!!!!! The S.O.S. call was for me to come and pick up Graham and take him to their house so he could get his 4-wheel drive and a chain to get them out. The adventure for me was that I had no idea where the pastor lives...just knew that he lived out in the country a little out of Tullahoma. I found it with ease and ended up taking Graham and Abigail to their house as it was decided that she would drive their other vehicle back too in case they couldn't get the van out! On top of the agrivation of having gotten stuck, it was also a very cold day...only in the low to mid 20s for a high. But luckily they were able to take shelter in the guest house. I wish that I could post the video of them trying to capture the rooster (the pastor claims that the rooster is the spawn of the devil!). Aren't they lucky to get this particular rooster?! I guess time will tell. Isaac as requested him for his birthday supper in a couple of weeks! Anyway, I got Graham and Abigail home to their house. They got back and Graham was able to pull them out before it got dark...and all is well! And, the chickens have taken up residence at the Dorrell's farm and our pastor thinks that they look a lot better there than at his place! So that is the saga of our Christmas Day! Today we have taken it easy. I have continued to work on making the iPad mine. I even made it a little fabric weighted stand that I can sit on my lap or on the arm of the chair and it will let the ipad be propped up. Woody has continued to work on his puzzles since he is TVless. We had a Hasty proch dropoff today with them getting to pick up a little something. I think that we fared the best as ours are to eat and read. I will shortly be able to show what I have been having folk pick up from our porch...but there are still a few recipients so I best not spoil the surprise...though they may have gotten a hint from Facebook on Christmas Day. I should make note of the tragic explosion in Nashville that is affecting folk near and far from Nashville. I found out about when I first got my iPad to open up and that was the news of the day facing me. I found out last night that it has affected us but not to a point of being a problem. Connie tried to call me on our landline from Alabama last night. She found that our line was dead. She called me on my cell phone to let me know. Our phone isn't dead as I can make calls here in Tullahoma, but I am guessing that the long distance service is affected. I am thankful for cell phones...but even thoughs are affected for many. Melany and Wade's internet is affected...they are closer to Nashville, plus they have AT&T. I'm guessing that our provider uses AT&T for long distnace. One of the internet companies that supplies Tullahoma exclusively has about a third of their costomers without internet as they use AT&T. Since we don't have TV at the moment we don't know a lot about what is being found out about the explosion, but just that it affected a lot of downtown buildings...Woody said 41 buildings which he learned when he came upstairs and did some computer searching this morning. Quite a few states are affected with their internet and phone service...not going to be an easy fix as I understand. Not the news story that one wants to read about on Christmas morning...or any morning. What a year... On that note I will say: Be safe! Be well! Be cautious! for 'tis still the season...for a little longer!