What is happening to these years that fly by so fast? It seems the older we get the faster the days fly by! Ralph and I have been together 12 years already. What great years they have been! We still count the blessing of having found one another as one of the greatest gifts the Lord has given us. We so enjoy our life together here in Florida and still serve as temple workers in the Orlando Temple and particularly enjoy our new assignment to team teach the Gospel Doctrine class in our ward. That really is about the best calling you can have in the ward and the hours we spend studying and preparing for the class together are so satisfying.

Travel wise it has been a quiet years for us. We did have our family reunion at Lake Anna in Virginia and it was absolutely wonderful to have the whole family together. The grandkids thoroughly enjoyed each other and it was a joy for me to have my whole family gathered! I was granted my wish to have pictures of the whole family together as well as some of each family separately. I looked at my adult children and wistfully thought back of the years when they were small and all mine. How fast they all grew up--- Enjoy your little ones! Savor those special moments together because all too soon they will be grown and on their own. (Oh my, such nostalgia!)

Our major recent excitement was experiencing hurricane Wilma first hand. It was an awesome experience. This was our first hurricane we went through since we were in Kosrae for the ones that passed through last year! Our damage was limited to our pool enclosure with screens slapping in the wind, our satellite dish was blown away and we had some trees down and lots of debris in the pool, hot tub and yard but the house was totally in tact but, oh, the damage was so bad for so many others who lost their roofs.

It was amazing to experience a storm that went so directly over us and the eye of it which was so huge and took about 90 minutes to pass, the eerie quiet through that period of time and then the sudden backlash of the storm when the other side came through. That was really bad! It was much fiercer than the first part and the one that caused most of the damage. They figured the backside of the storm was a high category 2 or low 3 with sustained winds of 110 miles an hour and gusts higher than that. We really don't want to go through that again although at all times we felt quite comfortable about the safety of our home and felt protected with strong hurricane shutters in place on all the windows.

A new development was the total power outage that was caused by the storm throughout the 6 counties affected by the storm. Our power was restored 3 days later but many are still in the dark. We were so glad we had bought a generator earlier in the summer so we at least had lights and could keep the fridge going. It breaks your heart to see the mounds of spoiled food that had to be thrown away by the supermarkets. Another bad thing was that you couldn't find gas because the gas stations did not have power to pump the gas and they had people sit and wait in lines for up to 6 or 7 hours to get gas at the few stations that did have power. Thankfully we had the foresight to have both cars filled so we were fine but the poor souls that had to commute to work were having a time of it all. Right now the weather is beautiful, nice and cool with temps in the 70's and cool night time temps. Thank heaven for that because so many people are still without power. As I am writing this we have just been advised another tropical depression is heading our way! Unbelievable! At least this one is not a hurricane as yet so maybe we'll get off a little easier. I guess this is the price we pay for living in paradise.

We wish each and everyone a wonderful Holiday season and the no storms in your life during 2006!