Our Holiday Home

Hi Friends~ I hope this night finds you all warm and cozy at home with your families. Good news to report, today the electricity FINALLY came on for many of my friends. Tonight would have been ONE WEEK! Yikes. I am so happy to see the lights on in my neighbor's windows. 

Last weekend, we put up the lights and got our tree. The kids had the tree picked out in about two seconds. It was painless and I think they picked out one of the best trees we ever have had. Good job guys .As far as the lights going up, a couple of strands had to be replaced, but other than that we were good to go. Whew!!

The front porch all lit up.

The porch before the lights went on. I have to say I LOVE pointsettias. The more the merrier.

I love this wreath. I bought it at Target. I love how the red is so vibrant.

The perfect tree with nothing on it

Aren't the trash bags under the tree lovely???  They will soon be covered with the tree skirt.

The lights are on, but still a lot of work to do

Voila...Its Done! The kids have so much fun decorating the tree. We all love pulling out the ornaments with all our names on it and the year we got it. We have family ones and individual too:)

A quick peek at the lit up mantle. MORE TO COME!

Thanks for visiting and have a cozy evening~

xo

~Cheryl

54 Hours

Hi Everyone~

Hoping this weekend is finding you all well. I have been absent from the blog world for most of the week. I live in the Pasadena area of California and this past Wednesday night/Thursday morning we had a horrible wind storm. The winds at times were gusting up to 100 miles an hour. We lost power and internet on Wednesday night and our power was finally restored yesterday at 5:23 a.m. (54 hours out) We were very lucky, minimal damage and just a bunch of spoiled food. Others were not so lucky. Houses damaged, trees lost and many people still with no power and water. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The amount of trees destroyed is unbelievable!!!! Thousands and thousands!!!

This is part of an oak down...one of thousands.......

This is the bottom root area of a Redwood around the corner that luckily fell towards the street. It is massive.
I learned form all of this that I am not ready for a disaster. We didn't have enough water stored, had trouble finding flashlights etc. Here in Southern California our BIG worry is the BIG EARTHQUAKE!! Well, I need to better prepare my family.
The clean up will take quite a awhile, but it is interesting how people really come together in times of need. Too bad it takes something like this for people to bond together.

I hope you all have a wonderful, non -eventful week!!
xo
~Cheryl