Category → Christmas
Christmas Eve Snowstorm
Wow! We often complain about never having snow here in Oklahoma City. Most of the time if we do have winter weather, it ends up being sleet or freezing rain. Yesterday it was a nice 65 degrees and we were really enjoying it. This morning I woke up at 6:00 AM and it was raining. By 7:15 it had turned to sleet. The sleet fell for nearly four hours before turning to snow. By noon the National Weather Service had issued a blizzard warning for most of Oklahoma including Oklahoma City. In my 43 years I cannot remember ever having a blizzard warning here. The picture above shows looking behind my house toward the North. The picture below shows a view looking across the street. I was having a difficult time taking this picture because I the snow was blowing in my face even though the wind was from behind the house and I was on the front porch.
To be honest, I was very skeptical of this being much of a winter weather event because we have been promised these storms before and ended up with rain. When these pictures were taken, the wind was blowing 50+ miles per hour (MPH). Although we received 14.1 inches of snow, the drifts were pretty high. We had to shovel a huge drift from behind the car just so we could back out of the drive way to pick up my son from work.
The good thing about this snow is that tomorrow is Christmas and we have not had a white Christmas in 20 years. As of the time I am posting this, it is still snowing pretty hard. The radar shows that it is almost over. It looks like the snow will not last more than a couple more hours. Tomorrow should be a nice clear day for Christmas although we will have a nice snow covered day. While it is nice to have the snow, I have been watching the weather coverage all day and it has been telling us about one car accident in Midwest City that involved 50 cars. Another accident in El Reno involved 20+ cars. I know there have been many others but these two are the ones that really stood out to me. Let’s hope no one was seriously injured. It would be tragic for someone to have injuries on Christmas eve. I did drive to the store just outside my residential area about an hour ago and it was tough but manageable. As long as you don’t stop in a deep snow drift you are okay. We had to help push another car so they could get moving.
For us, it has been a nice day. Our white Christmas is a welcome site and we are happy to see it despite having nearly zero visibility.
I Miss Colors
As much as I love my hometown, there is one thing that it really lacks in the winter time and that is color. As the photo above is in black and white, it is representative of some of the days we have in the winter. This is Ray Trent park in Del City on a cold winter day with no leaves on the trees and a slight fog on a cloudy day.
Fortunately our winters are not too long and our wonderful colors return. What brings this on is an unusual cold snap that we had this past week as did most of the rest of the nation. We had temperatures that hovered around 10 degrees. We went nearly a whole week where the temperature never climbed above freezing. The colorful flowers were taken at the Myriad Gardens in Oklahoma City during the autumn transition.
I love taking pictures whenever I can but lately I have been so busy with work, family, and trying to fix things around the house. We are looking to move in the next year so we are trying to get the house sellable. This means taking my tower down and getting rid of it. Though it is a bit sad to part with my ham radio tower, it will also give me some peace during storm season. Every time we have lightning nearby, I cringe because one strike to my tower could burn the house down. This is ironic because I love severe weather other than that. People often say “just disconnect the cables” but if they only knew how many cables and how they were routed through the wall. Well now they are removed and the tower is next after Christmas.
I can hardly wait until I have some time to go take some more pictures because it is enjoyable and I love to be able to share them on Flickr. By the time Spring comes around we will see a lot of colors with trees and flowers blooming. I love to get out and take pictures then. There is something psychological about the Spring time. It is almost as if there is life for everyone to experience. The birds singing, the flowers blooming, and it even smells fresh. I love it and sure miss it when we have weeks like this. I should be grateful because we use to live at Eielson AFB near Fairbanks, Alaska. When we lived there, I could barely stand it when March would arrive and it would still be –15 degrees. We are very fortunate to be able to experience all four seasons here. It does seem that Winter is going to be colder this year since it is still not winter and we have already been as low as 10 degrees. At least the cold will kill many of the insects and maybe next summer will not be as bad with fleas and ticks. It has been a long time since we have had a real cold winter so I guess we are due for one. Another good thing about having a cold winter is that spring is that much more pleasant after one. I hope you all have a nice CHRISTtmas. Thanks for stopping by.
Christmas at the Brite’s
This morning we rose early to go to Checotah, Oklahoma to visit my father in law. We had a pretty good time there except that I was a little under the weather. Early this morning our warm weather came to an end as a cold front came crashing through. At 4:00 AM a line of severe thunderstorms came through bringing hail and high winds. We lost power three or four times. Shortly after that, the cold front came through and dropped the temperature more than 20 degrees but the sun was shining. We left at 8:00 AM to go to Checotah and eventually caught up with the storms. By the time we arrived, it was raining. Around 2:00 PM, the clouds cleared away and it was not too bad. We all enjoyed ourselves though I have had a sore throat, stopped up head, and now my ribs are hurting. I hope this clears up before I have to go back to work on Monday. In the above picture, we have Sunday and I standing in front of the house on the lower level kitchen.
We opened our Christmas presents and visited together for a while. We had a wonderful meal to eat. I was asked to help set up a home wifi system and was actually looking forward to it. My wife, looking out for me told them that I did not feel good and could not do it. Later I asked if they were ready to work on it and she told me no and we could do it another time since I was not feeling well. I did not know that my wife had spoken to her until after we started home. She is always looking out for me and helping me out. I sat in the car sending Twitter messages on my phone all the way home while Sunday drove home. As always it was a good time. We enjoyed seeing family and visiting. Unlike the portrayal in the movie Four Christmases, we actually look forward to seeing the family. Sunday has a great dad and step mom.
Last night our dog had two siezures and it really scared us. She is 15 years old and was out of control for a few minutes. That was pretty scary though she is back to normal now. Now we are home and the house is very cold since we had the heat turned off the whole time we were gone. I thought I would share how our day went and hope yours went just as well as ours did.
Christmas At My Dad’s
I just arrived home from visiting my dad’s house and we had a pretty good time. We laughed so hard that I worried for him bursting a blood vessel 
. In the above photo, my dad and Retha managed to pull it together enough to answer the cell phone. My dad was talking to his mom in Wynnewood. The call did not last very long because he could not stop laughing. I would love to tell you what we were laughing about but it may not be appropriate to post online. I will just tell you it was about a stunt that he did when he was a teenager. This Christmas weekend has been very good and more than a blessing.
Even Larry got into the laughing. We have always been told that laughter is good for your health and after tonight, we are all healthy enough to be marathon runners. Tomorrow we are going to go to Sunday’s dad’s house and I will make a point to post online. If tomorrow is going to be like the rest of the weekend, it will be a great time. Today was such a good day all the way around as the temperatures approached 80. The last time I checked it was 76 degrees on the day after Christmas. The house was so hot that we opened the windows and let the 30 MPH wind blow through. Our puppy dog Sandy needs some prayers though. She is nearly 15 years old and she had two siezures this afternoon. My wife was distraught over that for good reason. Since we will not be near the computer all day tomorrow, I will enable Twitter notifications on my cell phone. I will be back sometime tomorrow night though. Again, thanks for all the well wishes for our family.
What a Christmas!
This was a day that I have dreaded for a long time though it turned out to be a great day after all. As you heard earlier we spent Christmas eve and half of Christmas day with Kevin and Jordan. Later in the day Sunday and I went to the Warren Theater in Moore to see four different movies. We started out with Seven Pounds with Will Smith, and then went to Bedtime Stories. After that we went to Marley and Me, followed up by Four Christmases. We were at the theater from 1:00 PM until 10:40 PM. We just got home and really had a good time.
When we came out of the movie theater, we were amazed how warm and spring like it felt outside. The ground was covered with condensation. It was close to 70 degrees at nearly 11:00 PM. Now we are tired and back home. Pretty amazing day for sure and now we only have one more week until 2009. This is hard to believe how fast this year went.
Heartfelt Gratitude
As I sit here typing this post I struggle to hold back the tears of emotion. My son is sleeping in his own bed here in our home. I never imagined how emotional this would be but this morning I am met with joy, grattitude, and shame for not trusting in God to bring my son home. He ran away on September 26, 2008 after a very harsh confrontation between him and myself. The last three months I have been angry, bitter, sad, and guilt along with every emotion a person can go through. My son had cut off all communication with us and making things better was impossible. The very mention of Christmas made me angry. My wife and other son have been incredible with their support and mourning the loss of 25% of our family. It truly has been like a death in the family only worse becase this loss was because of anger. I know my son is not here to stay but his being here is the best Christmas gift I have ever had. I stopped praying for his return but only that he would be happy.
This morning both of my sons are still asleep but my wife and I have been struggling with emotion. All I can say is “Thank you God!” Thank you for not giving up on us. Thank you for taking care of my son. Thank you for my family that stayed behind. Thank you most of all for sending your son to die to pay for my sins. This day we celebrate the birth of your son, we get to celebrate the second birth of ours. God I pray that our other son will not hate his brother or us for being happy to see him. This day we celebrate the miracle of Jesus’ birth and the miracle of my son that was lost.
I just want to say thank you for the countless people that have prayed for our family. This truly is a miracle and I want everyone to know how greatful that I am. I love my family and this moment is hard to express with words. The many emotions that I feel at this moment cannot be expressed with words. I am sorry God for not trusting in your greatness and power. I feel shame for not having faith. I feel shame for lashing out at everyone. I feel gratitude for being given such a gift when I am not worthy. I feel gratitude for such a loving wife and mother Sunday. Words cannot express how much I love her. Short of Jesus himself, she is the very reason I wake up in the morning. Thank you Sunday for all that you are. Thank you Kevin for being the strong son that has been there for me and supported mom and I. Thank you for being the incredible son that anyone could ask for. Thank you Jordan for forgiving me enough to come home. I love my family and I love the God that gave them to me.
As painful as it was to lose my mom in 2005, this was even more painful. I miss my mom so much and I wish she could be here with us. I missed Jordan and just wanted to tell him that I love him but I could not because he would not speak to me. Now that he is home all I have to offer him is all the love that I can give and no lectures. He and Kevin are so important to Sunday and I and no one can put a value on that. This is honestly the first time in my life that I have been so greatful for a gift that it has brought me to tears. All I can say is thank you God. Thank you again and a million times. If I gave you all that I am, it could not be enough to repay you for the gratitude that I feel. This is truly the happiest Christmas that I have ever had.
All I can say is Thank you…
Accident
Last night my poor son went out for the first time in the car with his girlfriend and had an accident. He received his license just last week and failed to yield at a green light on a left turn. This is what the car looked like after a woman hit him in the side. As disappointed as we are we are greatful he and the other woman are not injured. This was a learning experience that I am sure will never happen again. We felt sorry for him because he is normally a good driver. This accident made him feel terrible as I would imagine it would anyone. I am sure this was a very difficult phone call to make when he had to call us to tell us about the accident. We have already taken it to a repair shop and filed a claim. The biggest concern I have at this point is the insurance premium increase that is sure to come. It already went up 100% just adding him to our account. We will be fine and we will stand behind him. If you click on the photo above you will see the rest of the pictures that I took.
I just wanted to thank all of you for your prayers. He is safe and the lady that hit him was very friendly. It is like God was there watching out for him. I am hopeful that the garage gets it back in the three weeks that was forecasted. Other than the accident it was a nice morning with temperatures rising above freezing for the first time in nearly a week. We had some wonderful fog all day and that was nice as well. Sunday had a Christmas luncheon for her work to attend at the base chapel this afternoon. At least this accident happened at a time where we could afford to take off work. We are going to relax and enjoy the evening after I get back from visiting my dad. I will go see him around 5:00 PM. He has been doing well and still working hard at 71 years old. He is a hard worker for sure. As my great grand mother said one time… “I would rather wear out than rust out”.
We are planning on meeting with our other son to take a family picture this weekend. That is what I wanted for Christmas. He was gracious enough to come to take a picture for this occasion. I think this is a great sign for those that are aware of his situation. I usually do not enjoy the secular Christmas rituals of shopping yourself into debt. When I hear the commercials on television refer to it as “Holiday” it ruins the mood even more. I could go on for hours about how Christmas is ONLY about JESUS and NOTHING else but I will spare you the dissertation THIS TIME . I see our satellite television is cutting out so I am going to have to realign it again. Thanks for stopping by.
Update 21 December 2007
This is a momentous occasion in that I have completed a whole week of work without taking off. Is that sad or what? With sickness, and ice storms ruling the day, I have really burned some vacation days. Today was the last day of work before Christmas. It is after 11:00 pm and my wife, son, and girlfriend, and her friend are putting up the Christmas tree. It is only four days from Christmas and it does not even feel like Christmas at all. It is not that I did not want to put the tree up, but I have not really been in the mood.
While they are putting up the tree, I am watching the Dallas Mavericks beating the Los Angeles Clippers on ESPN and barely able to stay awake. Whether I go to bed at 8:00 pm, or midnight, I always wake up before the alarm and have not had much sleep this week. We cut many tree limbs this week and put them in the front yard since the city is going to come around and pick up the ice damaged tree limbs. In January, I am going to do the impossible deed of paying someone to cut the next door neighbor’s tree down to the ground. That tree has damaged our home many times and has been a constant trouble.
Today at work I watched a display that really bothered me. Maybe I am overreacting but I will let you be the judge. There are three women at my work that have done some research to find a family that has endured hardship on Tinker AFB. While I was off for surgery, they collected money at work and then spent two weeks wrapping Christmas presents on the clock. They bought more than 50 presents and put them on banquet tables at work and called the family to come to work to receive them. They made them open the presents while more than 100 workers stood by and watched. I made a point to leave the area against my supervisor’s wishes because I thought this was shameful. I thought making a sideshow of this family was humiliating for them and I did not want to be associated with it. I think a more appropriate approach would have been to anonymously deliver these gifts and not subject them to the humiliation of opening these gifts in front of everyone with the cameras flashing. I may be wrong but in my opinion, this whole display was more for the benefit of those three women getting a pat on the back than it was a gesture of compassion. If I am wrong, let me know because I do not wish to be judgmental in this but I just did not get a good feeling about this.
Again, I have not really been in the Christmas mood this year. I am hopeful that I am wrong in my opinion of the above story because I really would hate to embarrass a family like that. Well guys… I see this blog post really going in the wrong direction reflecting my fatigue. I better get off here and get some sleep.
Don’t Happy Holidays Me!
If there is anything that really gets to me is the never ending “Happy Holidays” or Holiday this or Holiday that. It is CHRISTmas! We do not buy gifts for New Years Day, or Thanksgiving Day. This is the Christmas season period. Lets not forget that Christmas is the birth of Jesus. It has nothing to do with the fictitious Santa Claus. It amazes me that the very people on television that tell you to go buy a gift for your loved one for this “Holiday” season do not even believe in Jesus. This is one topic that really gets on my nerves. The commercials are all about getting your money and making you feel guilty than recognizing the true meaning of Jesus’ birth. There have been studies to show that most Americans would rather them say “Merry Christmas” as opposed to Happy Holidays but they will not do it because in this politically correct climate, they do not want to offend the one minority. In America the minority rules the majority. We do not want to offend the minority so we completely disregard the majority. Something is not right there.
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Thursday Scripture Thoughts
Psalm 32:9 Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you.
I like to sit on the porch of an early morning. I watch people walk their dogs. Some have a short leash and keep the animal close to them. Some owners use expandable leashes. The dog will run to the very border and need to be drawn back in. Some owners don’t use a leash at all. The dogs in this group love to walk right beside their master. I like this group of animals the most and we are blessed to have a dog in this group. She wants to be with us. She is obedient. In this little analogy we can see where we are in our walk down life’s street. Do we like being with the Lord or are we running to the border to do our own thing? If we see Him as our Lord and Master we will want to walk right beside Him.