We Wish You A Merry Christmas!

December, 2007

Dear Family & Friends,

Our third year of retirement seemed to be just as busy as the past two years have been. We were thankful God blessed us once again with good health and the opportunity to continue our “journey” with family and friends across the U.S. and Mexico.

We started the year with a trip in our RV’s out west with our dear friends, Fred & Faye Merkel. We were routed off I10 at Van Horn, TX because of ice and snow only to find ourselves driving through a sand storm in Yuma, AZ! We arrived in San Diego, CA safe & sound where we visited a couple days with good friends Dave & Sandra Harrison and Paul & Lena Jones. We then headed on up to Hemet to visit with Uncle Don & Aunt Maxine Hathaway and were joined by Jenni, Dottie, and Tara & Wayne who flew in from Kansas & Indiana. What a fun family reunion we all had when we arrived in LA in the Hollywood Hills to meet up with cousin Stan and J. Paul. This turned out to be one of the coldest January’s in CA in many years as it got down to a low of 24 degrees one night! Uncle Don’s outdoor water fountain turned into a really neat ice sculpture!

We left CA and met up again with Fred & Faye in Phoenix (they went on to AZ while we visited in LA) where they were visiting with their family, Farrell & Dottie Bagshaw. We stayed a couple days in Phoenix then headed south of the border to Kino Bay, MX where we stayed 10 days on the beautiful Sea of Cortez. There was only one dark cloud -- we can now officially tell you a story about dealing with the policia Mexicano!

In February, back in San Antonio, we took our grandchildren and daughter once again to “Let’s Rodeo, San Antonio”, one of the largest indoor rodeos in the country. Fred & Faye came over for a weekend visit from Katy, TX and we took them on a TX hill country ‘tour of towns’. Then a week later our son Dallas drove 20-½ hrs. straight through from Lafayette for a visit. We showed him as much of TX as we could in three days – The Riverwalk, Rudy’s BBQ, Cowboys Dancehall, Luckenbach, and the beach at Corpus Christi! We also celebrated grandson Caelum’s 6th birthday.

The first of April found us back in Lafayette, IN. Spring was beginning and our son had acquired five new baby pigs to feed out over the summer and fall. Those pigs sure did grow fast! We were quite busy April through September with the TV tower, coffee roaster, wood boiler and pig’s projects as well as with The Truck Pull, The Hog Roast ’07 and our granddaughter Chloe! We also made a trip in May back to KS to give our nephew, Bryan, a shot at selling the Botorhome on Lake Perry Yacht & Marina (it didn’t sell and we brought it back to Lafayette end of Sept) and to work on a few projects in Oskaloosa.

In October we went for a fun get-away trip to Ft. Myers Beach, FL with Jenni & Dottie and then finished up the electrical upgrade project at J&D’s house before heading back to San Antonio for the winter…. whew! We’re now at home at Tejas Valley on the west side of San Antonio.

We’re also worshipping once again with our friends at Travis Park UMC and have joined The Celebration Singers. This group of band/singers leads the 11AM worship service with a variety of inspirational contemporary music. In addition to Sunday worship, we’ll be doing some Christmas caroling downtown for a lighting ceremony, for the homeless and on the Riverwalk barges as well as singing in the Christmas Eve Service.

We wish each of you a blessed Christmas and may God’s Peace and Love abide in your hearts and homes in 2008 and always.

Love,
Doug & Elaine

Phone no: 210-487-0390
Email: nainer11@hotmail.com