New Year's Eve 2016 at John and Yvonne's

Well, another year has come and gone; and it's new year's eve. Wow! Where has the time gone?

We were surprised by a call from Jessica asking if she could come by and join us Saturday evening. What a blessing! She had also been on deployment, and then was transferred to Florida. It was really nice to see her again. Josh, Liam, and Eric were here, as well as Crystal and Kezia.

After meeting the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on Friday, it was nice to have Austin back in our home! His mom and brother drove here from Texas to meet the ship, and joined us Saturday night for our activities. Austin is the one in the middle!

Yvonne fixed chicken wings, meat balls, a veggie tray, and potato chips for dinner. And then it was chocolate fondue fruit for dessert. Everyone loved the chocolate fondue!

The young lady on the right giving me the "Don't you dare take that picture look is K, a really good friend of Yvonne's. She was in town visiting her father and stayed with us.

 After dinner, our game for the evening was "Catch Phrase!" Sorry, I didn't get any pictures while we were playing the game. But this is what it looks like.

James and Bethany Lokey joined us after dinner. Bethany is Yvonne's cousin, who just a few weeks ago married a man from back home in Oklahoma, who joined the Navy and ended up getting stationed here! Yea!

And this is what it looks like while you're playing it - these next three pics are of Josh's family playing with us when they were here. But, you get the idea. Lots of fun, lots of laughs and giggles!

After the game we lit the candles on the Christmas tree one last time. While we watched the candles I talked about the Christmas story - how the shepherds saw the angels, and went to the manger in Bethlehem to see the baby. And how the wise men saw the star and followed it until they came to the house where the little child was in Nazareth. The shepherds didn't follow the star, and the wise men didn't go to the manger.

I shared the symbolism of the Christmas tree and how it represents eternal life that Jesus came to bring, and how the candles represent Jesus Christ as the light of the world. The point being that God the Father loved the world so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to bring salvation, and forgiveness of sin to us.

Then we got to talking about our eternal destiny according to the book of Revelation, being the New Jerusalem and not just 'heaven', which sparked an interesting discussion! We talked about the dimensions of the city, and what we would be doing there: ruling and reigning with Christ over the people living on the outside of the city, and bringing the love of Christ out to them, encouraging them to believe and come into the city.

When the candles burned down to a nub we finally extinguished them. Several people decided to call it a night, except Crystal, Josh, and Eric. Eric began playing the guitar and we sang some hymns while we waited for the ball to drop!

At midnight we all wished each other a Happy New Year and made a beeline for bed. It was a really great New Years Eve!