Hallelujah, it's Christmas Day

Hallelujah - The Canadian Tenors

 I love this song by these guys! 

The tempo seems a bit slow,  but this is the best version I could get on YouTube.

Thank you all for the nice (and funny) comments about Katie in her Christmas Reindeer outfit - She DOES look like a deer in the headlights - that was a good one!  Exactly what she looks like.  And I'm SURE she was thinking, "Hurry up with the damn picture and get me out of these things!"  She is such a good sport.  She looks kind of scared, but she was really okay with it.  I have written before that, although I think she is a really good dog and I love her madly, she doesn't get cute expressions on her face like a lot of dogs do.  But once in a while...  like in the reindeer stuff, she actually has an expression!  LOL  (Even if she looks miserable.)

Katie had a fantastic Christmas with Tom and Trish and the kids.  The baby Graydin, who is going to be two in April, LOVES her and loves to chase her. At their house, which is huge, he chases her around and around the downstairs, which Katie loves, and Graydin just giggles and keeps running.  The only problem at my place, which is about 1,100 sf including the small kitchen, two bedrooms, a dressing room, and two baths, which leaves a very small living/dining room, is that HERE, Graydin can catch her!  At first he tried to kick and hit her, he is very aggressive, but it didn't take long for him to learn that he needed to be nice and gentle with Katie, and by the end of the day he was playing ball with her.  So cute!

Every one liked their presents, the turkey dinner turned out great, and we all took a walk down to the lake to feed the ducks. After dinner and presents everyone settled down to watch a Christmas movie, during which Gavin, six, and I found some peace and quiet in my room and I read him a dinosaur pop-up book that I got him.  It's a beautiful book with very intricate dinosaurs that pop up on each page, with 4 to six little booklets with little pop-ups on each page, too.  Wonderfully done and he loved it.  Hard to pronounce those dinosaur names, though.  They were spelled phonetically also, but were still hard to pronounce.

  Trish and Tom at dinner

 Kennedy, Me and Gavin (recognize the antlers and scarf?)

 Graydin wearing his sister's Uggs - Katie with her ball

And everyone loved the Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes!

With all the rain we've had, I noticed a leak in my bedroom yesterday.  I e-mailed the home owner's association and got the go ahead to contact the man they use for leaks, so I sent him an e-mail to call me.  I couldn't believe I got a phone call this morning at 8:30 am, and he was here at 9:30 to check it out, on Christmas!  He said there's a two day window to check it out because of the mold possibilities.

We've had some real issues here, because for at least 15 years our absolutely, positively, awful board that was representing us for 15 years (we have a new one now) did absolutelly positively nothing in the area of maintenance to our condos. We're just all learning that not only did they do pretty much nothing, when the did any maintenance or repairs they used "bandaids" and the wrong kind of bandaids.  Nothing was done correctly, and now the current owners are paying, and are going to be REALLY paying soon for all those years of deferred maintenance.  Our entire roofing system is bad, was done wrong.  Roofer went bankrupt, and the current HOA board can't even find the paperwork.

So, what I found out this morning is that the poorly done roof and gutter system on my condo is gushing water that's getting into my walls, under the concrete that my place is built on, it's all wet, my carpet is wet underneath, etc.  Part of my living room underflooring has shifted.  I, along with others in my model, will probably have walls taken down and re-built, the underflooring redone, etc.  Some are already in progress.

The only good part is that I may get a new carpet in the bedroom and a new sliding door in the living room.  But you can bet we are all going to get a huge assessment in the next month or two.  There goes my RV fund!

From Me and Katie, Merry Christmas evening, everyone!  Hope your holiday was the BEST!  : )