December 27, 2002

• We had a great Christmas! Our present to each other was a digicam, and, lo and behold, Xanga will recognize files created with its program, so here are a few pics of our family’s celebration. We did not take the camera out of the box before Christmas, so it took us awhile to figure it out (actually my son took most of the pics) so there are not many pics taken while we were unwrapping gifts.
  
  This is Madison. You can’t see much of it, but she is wearing the play dress we gave her for Christmas. We also bought her a Christmas dress, which she was wearing until she opened this one. This dress is a jumper with a onesie. She has been wanting a onesie because her brother wears them. Most clothes her size are shirts – not onesies. Anyway, the Christmas dress did not make it to church – she insisted on wearing this one.
  
  
  
  This is our daughter-in-law Jessica, who had a little secret to share.
  
  
  
  This is another picture of Madison wearing just the onesie.
  
  
  
  This is Ryan. For some reason there are not many pics of Ryan. There is a nice little movie, but I can’t post that here. Ryan is into books. The first thing he opened was a book and after that it was difficult to get him to open anything else. He finally opened this puzzle set.
  
  
  
  The next 2 pics were taken after Mass and after dinner. The kids were ready for bed. This is our son Andy and his wife Jessica with their niece and nephew. Next year they will have a kid of their own to hold in the Christmas pictures. That was Jess’s little surprise.
  
  
  
  This is our daughter Betsy with her husband Matt and the kids. They say this is the way their Christmas pic will always look – just the 4 of them. Maybe they will let the little cousin be in it sometimes, though.
  
  
  
  This is Dan and me with Madison and Ryan. We were the last to get our pictures taken and the kids were not in the mood to cooperate anymore. Andy took this 4 times trying to get me with my eyes open, and – guess what? – my eyes are still closed! Oh well, better luck next year!
  
  
  
  These pictures show one of the things Christmas is about – family. I hope all of you had just as happy a Christmas!
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  This is something Bill or Steve sent me – can’t remember which one. Anyway, Christmas is also about prayer and these folks are praying. (I doubt that Christmas is really about this kind of prayer, but it is about friends like Bill and Steve!)
  
  The River
  
  One day, three men were hiking and unexpectedly came upon a large, raging, violent river. They needed to get to the other side, but had no idea of how to do so.
  
  The first man prayed to God, saying, “Please God, give me the strength to cross this river.”
  
  Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs, and he was able to swim across the river in about two hours, after almost drowning a couple of times.
  
  Seeing this, the second man prayed to God, saying, “Please God, give me the strength..and the tools to cross this river.”
  
  Poof! God gave him a rowboat and he was able to row across the river in about an hour, after almost capsizing the boat a couple of times.
  
  The third man had seen how this worked out for the other two, so he also prayed to God saying, “Please God, give me the strength and the tools…and the intelligence… to cross this river.”
  
  And poof! God turned him into a woman. She looked at the map, hiked upstream a couple of hundred yards, then walked across the bridge.
  

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