Holiday Season

With Thanksgiving over and the leftovers eaten, we’re now getting ready for the December festivities. My wife has taken down the turkey decorations, and we’ve started putting up Christmas decorations. The tree with lights is up. Next step, put on the ornaments. We publish a holiday newsletter and that’s at the printer, so we’ll soon be able to mail it out. We’re old school and still mail vs. email our newsletter. Whatever tradition you follow, have a wonderful family celebration in December.

Happy Thanksgiving

We’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving on Friday this year with two of our kids, two grandkids, our daughter-in-law and my wife’s brother. It will be a low key Thanksgiving but a chance to get together and give thanks.

Men of Mystery Conference

Here are some pictures from the Men of Mystery Conference two weeks ago. I gave my one-minute pitch on the first two books of my Omnipodge Trilogy, Old Detectives Home and Last Gasp Motel. I signed books, met new people and had a chance to chat with old friends.

Parent Teacher Conferences

I recently attended the parent teacher conference with my daughter for my third-grade grandson. The teacher had very good feedback on my grandson’s strengths and areas for improvement. I was impressed with her professionalism and knowledge of my grandson. Her enthusiasm in doing what’s best for the students has passed through because my grandson is enjoying school.

Halloween

To prepare for Halloween, we purchase a large stash of candy. There is a carnival at a park two blocks from our house on Halloween evening, and we get a huge number of kids trick-or-treating on the way to the park or on the way back. This year we set an all-time record for number of kids coming to our door: at least 334. It could have been more, but since we live on a corner and have two doors to man for giving out treats, I race back and forth between doors and may have missed counting a few. We survived with a small amount of candy left after the evening’s festivities, and I got in a lots of exercise racing between doors.