We had a fun Christmas in St. Louis with both sides of our families.  We didn't get to stay long but it's always good to return home and visit. 

Yesterday, we had Christmas at our house with JD, Megan and Jayson.  Jayson had a lot of presents under our tree as we brought back quite a few from St. Louis with us from other family members.  He really enjoyed opening all of them and it was fun to watch.

Jodi and I will celebrate our 25th anniversary this Saturday.  To commemorate the milestone, I gave her a diamond anniversary band.  She enjoyed showing everyone at Christmas.

I'm working a couple days this week at the plant before getting 4 more days off heading into the new year.  My 30th anniversary is coming up in 9 months but I will have my 30 credits by mid-summer, thanks to all of the overtime I have worked. 

Friday is finally here and I'm looking forward to the next four days off.  We will get to spend some time relaxing, with family and friends as well as work on some end of year business related items.  I have to work two days next work but will have another four days off afterward before the new year begins. 

I contacted the RV resort in Colorado we are looking to stay at for our July trip.  They don't take reservations for chalets more than 150 days in advance because they have to get the rental contracts from the chalet owners first.  They said those are going out now and will likely see them coming back in from the owners after the first of the year.  I may be able to book some reservations around mid-January and we get some priority since we are a group looking to rent multiple chalets.

In a couple weeks, we will be having our weekend Wrench-a-thon at 4x4 Land in Topeka.  Our club will have use of the shop, the 4 hoists and the expertise of our sponsor.   We will be installing everything from lifts to lockers, lighting to armor and more.  It should be a fun time with the club members.  Not sure what I'm going to do yet to our Jeeps.  Have been considering getting a new bumper for mine and give Jodi my winch and light bar.  Have been thinking about coilovers as well.  SO many decisions! 

This will be my last post until after Christmas so

Mosquito Pass, one of the trails we will be doing when in Colorado in July.

On Saturday morning, Jodi and I met up with a client at Cabelas to deliver their order and then we went inside to do some Christmas shopping.  It was pretty busy but we found the items we wanted pretty quickly and got through checkout reasonably quick.  We got some good sale items and saved an extra $30 by putting it on my Cabelas card.  I browsed the guns while there but it's very hard to pay their prices.

Later that evening, we attended our club's Christmas party.  The attendance was very good and we enjoyed hanging out with friends.  Jodi and I both won some clothing in the raffle.  We have 133 club members right now and the goal is to reach 200 by the end of 2018.  It's pretty cool that the club has grown this much since February and it's due to activity.  Our President always says that "activity drives membership" and it is true.  There are wheeling opportunities at least two times per month and one of my good friends is now our club social director and there will be more social activities to go along with the wheeling events in 2018.  

Frostbite at Kansas Rocks will be our next big wheeling event and there will be a lot of rigs there.  February 24th is the date of the event and there will be a lot of food, raffle prizes and great wheeling.  We are thinking about going to SMORR with a small group in mid-June.  The club wants to go Memorial Day weekend but that seems like a total cluster to me.  SMORR can be pretty tricky when it is wet so we thought we'd maybe go in a drier month.   

We were at Kansas Rocks for the grand opening of the new section earlier this year and a film crew was there to do a feature on the park.  My Jeep and I made the video a few times in the first minute.  I can be seen attaching my GoPro to my bumper.  The television story on Kansas Rocks begins at 18:30.  It's a pretty good video and feature on the park.  The film crew was in FJ (Fake Jeep) Crusisers, sadly.  Click the link and skip to 18:30 of the video.

http://watch.ktwu.org/video/3007363326/

Right now we have 6 KC area people saying they are in for our Colorado Jeep adventure, 7 if you include us.  That would be a pretty good number for our trip.  I think the Tiger Run resort will be acceptable to everyone as the accommodations are reasonable.  Some would like to start the trip mid-week and stay through the weekend.  We will nail down start and finish dates for the group soon.  I think most are flexible.  It should be a really fun trip.

 

We are busy getting ready for our Model Team Christmas Party on Wednesday.  All 10 girls will be attending and we are going to have a Vanity Fair style photo shoot with the girls all wearing gowns followed by a nice dinner and gift giving.  It should be a fun time for all.

Saturday is the Midwest Krawlers Christmas Party and we will be attending that.  Our club has grown to 130+ members and we bare looking forward to hanging out with our Jeeple.  We haven't had a chance to go offroading with them of late as my work schedule as well as our business schedule didn't align with the group activities.  We may go wheeling in January but the next big event at Kansas Rocks is Frostbite, which is in late February. 

Jodi and I went to the Parma Woods shooting range with some friends on Sunday.  It was our first time there and it is a really nice facility that operated by the Missouri Department of Conservation.  The temps were in the low 50's and the range was pretty busy.  We had to wait for some handgun lanes so we started out on the rifle side.  I shot my Ruger 10-22 ITAC for awhile until the handgun lanes opened.  I took 6 handguns with me and shot them all.  I started with my Glock 19, followed by my new S&W M&P Shield 45.  I wasn't sure if I would like it or not but I actually shot it very well.  I may get a holster for it now that I have shot it.  I shot my 1911 after that and I definitely shot my 45's the best.  I finished up shooting my .357 and left the Springfield Armory XD40 in the case.  Jodi shot about 100 rounds through the Ruger SR22.  After I observed her leaning her head too far over to see through the sights, we determined that she is left eye dominant so we switched her to shooting left handed.  She did better so we are going to keep working on left handed shooting. 

 

Our business for the year is almost complete.  We have two more sales sessions left, some ordering to do and then it's time to get all of our records ready for the CPA, which that is always a fun task.  I know Jodi is looking forward to a break away from the computer for a bit.

Our 25th anniversary is at the end of the month so something special is in order.  Maybe I should buy her a winch for her Jeep?  :)   We will likely do a night out and maybe a trip soon.  She doesn't like to fly so it limits what we can do.  

In talking with some people about a Colorado Jeep adventure as well as looking at some trail opening date history, we may need to move the trip to mid-July as many of the trails at the high elevations aren't clear until then.  We wouldn't want to get out there and most be closed still but it all depends on the weather too.  They could open early or open late.  The Mile High Jeep club goes out and clears trails as they can.  That said, we are still working on nailing down dates for the trip.  

The weekend flew by and it's back to work for 6 days straight.  At least at the end of this month, I will get some extra time off as they are not going to let me soak up all the triple time over the Christmas break.  It looks like I will only get two to three days of it, which is fine.

We will be meeting with a former photo lab we once did business with.  They miss our business and want to have us in for lunch and go over the reasons why we took our business elsewhere.  What it tells me is that we are very high volume to a photo lab.  We sell more albums than most wedding photographers and they want that business back.  They have been contacting us once or twice a month requesting we get together with them but I wasn't going to do it during our busy season.  Now that we have slowed down, we are going to give them a meeting and see what transpires.

Jodi's mom, sister and great niece came in Friday evening and we spent the balance of the evening visiting.  Saturday morning, we all went down to the West Bottoms for First Friday's and went through some of the shops.  They were all decorated for Christmas and very busy.  After a couple hours there, they all went shopping at the box stores while I went to meet up with a photographer who was interested in buying some extra gear I was selling.  After completing that transaction, I went shopping myself.  We all got back together back at the house in the evening and Jayson came over to spend the night with us.

The next morning, we all got up for breakfast and JD and Megan joined us too.  We went to The Big Biscuit in Liberty and had some really good food before our visitors headed back to St. Louis.  Later that afternoon, I had a model team shoot with three of our girls and then Jodi and I spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

This week we have two more ordering sessions scheduled and lots of ordering to do as we wrap up another successful year.  We will be choosing a new Model Team for next year soon and working on some other thing we have planned.  We may just take a short vacation too. 

One hour until the weekend starts.  Jodi's family we be here late this evening and they will be busy shopping and visiting the rest of the weekend.  I will likely be on my own for most of it but have plenty to do, including a model team photo shoot Sunday afternoon.