Last Day of 2012

My grandson Tom was 20 years old on December 28. Hard to believe he is that old already!! He came down with his parents and they took me with them to Nagame's in Merced to celebrate his birthday. It was Tom's choice of where to go for dinner. His favorite restaurant is also mine. I enjoyed the visit and the dinner.

On Sunday, December 23rd, Kathryn and Jack invited family to a potluck at Castle Vista's clubhouse. It was their annual Christmas potluck for the Richards family. It's always good to see everyone. See more pictures of that day here.

Ernie and Diane invited Aunt Ernestine and I to dinner on Friday the 14th. The above gingerbread house was the centerpiece. Every year they make a gingerbread house from scratch and each time it's different. I took several pictures of it from front to back. You can see them by clicking on the link for the potluck pictures.
On Christmas Day, my sister's granddaughter invited me to join them for dinner. I wanted to take some pictures, but my little camera didn't cooperate for some reason. Too bad. I wanted to get a picture of little Richy with his new guitar. He just turned six years old earlier this month. He is quite a gentleman and a wonderful host at his tender age. My sister and I were quite amused and very surprised at how grown-up he is.
It's been a busy fun Christmas Season.
I hope everyone has a good year ahead of them.

Poinsettia Farm in Hughson

Today Frances took Ernestine, Helen and I to the Poinsettia Farm in Hughson. The plants were so beautiful. I still prefer the red ones, but they had a few other colors left. Originally they had 60,000 plants for sale but today they were down to 3,000.

Aunt Ernestine is looking over the plants to see which ones she wanted to buy.

Frances is helping Ernestine decide which ones would be the best to purchase.

Here is a double-decker wagon load of poinsettias going out the door. Aunt Ernestine said some of the churches buy their poinsettias here.

Here Helen, Ernestine and Frances are relaxing with a cup of hot Apple Cider before taking our plants to the counter to make the sale.
I'm not very good with keeping Poinsettias alive, so I picked out a dwarf lemon tree to grow in a large pot. Frances said the Meyer Lemon is very good, so I took her advice and picked out an Improved Meyer with lots of blossoms on it. It sure smells good.
Only thing I'm worried about; on the tag it says it needs protection when temperatures fall below 40 degrees. Might have to find something at the store to put around it.
From the Poinsettia Farm, we went to the Fruit Vineyard for lunch. It was a fun day. Aunt Ernestine said let's do it again next year.

WHS December meeting

Tuesday, December 4, the Winton Historical Society had their Christmas potluck during their December meeting. It was a smaller crowd than last year, but it was fun.
In the picture above is Rosalie, Ida Mae and Agnes.

Next around the table was Carole, Don, Avanell and Ivaleine. The picture is a little out-of-focus. I don't know what happened here. I must have focused on the flag, which is cropped out of the picture.

Next is Wilene, Marilyn, Hank, Helen and Carolyn. We had lots of good food. Enough for twice as many people. I tried to take a little from each bowl, but then couldn't eat it all. I was really stuffed!!
A few of us got there in the morning to fold the newsletters and get them ready to mail. They went out that afternoon.
It's always a big relief to finally get them mailed out. I'm hoping to have stories earlier next time and be a little more on schedule. The next newsletter will be the January/February issue. We have 29 members who have not paid their dues and they were not sent a newsletter. I had to drop 29 members last year also for not being current with their dues. I'm sure some of these will renew their membership in the society like they did last year. We always get new members during the year and so the membership increases little by little each year. We currently have 210 paid up memberships (households). We're happy to have that many.
A lot of them are out-of-state.

This Saturday, some of the members of the society will be at the Christmas Bazaar at the Winton Community Hall to sell the "Winton Centennial" recipe books ($15.00) and the Souvenir Mugs.
Pictured above is Carole with the festive packages to put in the mugs. In each package is instant chocolate mix, tied with a Christmasy red bell. Very pretty and will make nice little Christmas gifts. Carole did a beautiful job.
So, come out to the Winton Community Hall this Saturday, December 8 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Other people will be there to sell their wares.