Pre Christmas with Clark

I got a little caught up with cooking, family, parties and working at the shop, 

so the blog posts have been suspended in time with Clark 

(our Advent visitor)

in town for six days pre-Christmas.

My last post showed the tree all netted up.

It's a splendid tree….

and we'll keep enjoying it for the remaining 12 days of Christmas.

Bless his heart, 

Clark volunteered to help us 

out in the woods one day clearing our new trail.

One of the areas we cut through had 9+ foot tall 

briars, rose vines, autumn olive 

and fallen trees from the 2011 derecho

interlaced together.

It wasn't for the faint of heart.

The combined efforts of all three of us still took about an hour to extend the path less than 20 feet.  

Joe and I would probably still be in that one section if we hadn't had some younger muscles helping!

After all that work,

a big dinner was merited.

He's also turned out to be handy in the kitchen.

Which is a good thing because now that he's training for a triathlon, 

he eats more than you'd think humanly possible!

It wasn't all work,

we played our fair share of card and board games,

went for some walks and did some shopping together,

attended the Night of Miracles in Buena Vista

and shared a lot of love and hugs.

He opened his presents early….

And then we wished him goodbye at the Charlottesville 

airport before a few days before Christmas.

So sad to see him go! 

But the house wouldn't stay quiet for long,

because the Christmas visitors were coming!