Monday, December 31, 2012

Ring in the New Year

I can remember a time when 2013 seemed decades away. Now it is upon us, and I couldn't be more excited.  So many wonderful things going on!  As the New Year comes, it is always fun to look back on old memories.  One of my favorite New Year memories is a lovely, romantic one.

December 31st, years ago beneath the soft light of falling snow, close to the hour of midnight, the love of my life knelt before me, asking if I would spend the rest of my life with him.  He promised so many things that evening  ...to share in the laughter of our children, dance with me in our kitchen and make me smile everyday.

He does all of that and more.

'Le Gra Go Deo'  - With Love Forever, my dear husband.


In honor of romance, I'm sharing a few of my favorite books with you.  Check below to enter to win!

Be sure to leave a comment with your e-mail to be entered in the GRAND prize drawing!!

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May you have a blessed New Year!  I'd love to hear one of your memories of years gone by.


May the sun shine, all day long,
everything go right, and nothing wrong.
May those you love bring love back to you,
and may all the wishes you wish come true!

All the Best,
Rionna

Drop on by these other Blog Hop Sites for more chances to win!


Saturday, December 22, 2012

Blessed Yule

The winter solstice is a joyous time in the Morgan house.  We fill our home with light and laughter.  The candles we burn are red and white, symbolizing the power and courage of love, purity and hope for the coming year. We have a Yule candle that we burn each year, connecting the old with the new, the past with the future.

Each year we have a traditional Celtic meal.

Family
2012 Yule Menu

Capons in Wine Sauce
Green Beans & Almonds with Herb Butter
(Mint, Garlic & Parsley Butter)
Colcannon
Caraway Rye Bread

Black Velvet
(Guinness & Champagne)

Chocolate Mousse Yule Log

One of the favorite things we do is our Yule Wish Tradition.

Dance in the Nutcracker again.
 Everyone in the family has their own tree ornament.  After dinner and dessert, we write our wishes for the new year and attach them to our ornament.
Learn to play the guitar
and be a mermaid...she's 6.


When the evening is over and it's time to sleep into the new day, we each blow out a candle and make a new secret wish to carry in our hearts for the new year.  With my candle, with my wish, I thought of you:  all the wonderful new friends I've met this year.  May your days be filled with joy, may your heart be light and may all the worries of the past fade into nothingness. 

Blessed be you and yours.
Blessed Yule, my friends.
Rionna


Friday, December 14, 2012

Winter in Montana!

It's wintertime in Montana!  To celebrate, I'm participating in two Blog Hops...each with awesome prizes!!  I'm giving away a few awesome prizes myself.  Look below to see!
Other Sites for this Blog Hop!

One of my favorite Montana winter memories happened last year.  My three daughters were off from school.  It had snowed so much the night before!  In the morning  the whole world looked like it had been sprinkled with magic dust.  We made snowmen and snow angels and went sledding down our tall hills. Hot chocolate and warm cinnamon rolls were just the thing to come in to.  So much snow.  So many giggles. I loved that day!

A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet
2nd Grand Prize: 
A $200 Amazon or B&N Gift Card
3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack: 
paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks,
 cover flats, magnets, pens, 
coffee cozies, and more!





Be sure to leave a comment with your e-mail address to be entered to win!



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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

A Christmas in Montana Memory

I am very pleased to introduce the Win a Piece of Montana--November WINNER!  Actually, I've invited her to share a bit about herself.  I am so excited to share her with you.  

Website for Tara Chevrestt
When Ms. Morgan kindly offered me a spot on her blog, there really was no contest as to what I was going to talk about. It came to me almost immediately. Montana. More specifically, Christmas in Montana.

We all have that one Christmas that sticks in our memory as the best Christmas ever, the one we compare all Chrimstasses to and it seems they just don’t compare.

Mine was when I was eight or nine (sometime in the 90s. That’s all you’re getting from me on that.) and my parents saved and scraped and pinched and counted pennies so we could afford for my mother and I to make a trip to Montana to see her family. These trips are expensive as only one major airline *still, to this day* flies to that wonderous state. (That means they can literally get away with charging an arm, a leg, and whatever other body part they want.) We lived in Oklahoma, a long ways away.

This trip, due to airline hubs and flight plans, required us to fly from Oklahoma to Texas, Texas to Salt Lake City, and then Salt Lake City to Butte, MT, where my grandparents would meet us and drive half an hour to Deer Lodge. This was a whole day of traveling. But it was worth it just to see my wonderful family. We only made this trip once every...maybe four years.

And sometimes, there were delays, icy roads, etc. This is Montana we’re talking about, in December.

Well, the Christmas I was eight, we made this trip, and ALL my cousins were there! This was super unusual as they lived in Oregon at the time. This would be the last time all my cousins, all five of us, were together for Christmas. It hasn’t happened since.

My grandmother made fudge, cinnamon rolls, dinner was so full of people, it was like playing musical chairs! There was homemade bread, beef jerky and deer sausage. It was a time full of love and joy and fun. It was what Christmas should be about: NOT toys, not money. I was so content that holiday, I didn’t need much else.

And we went sledding!! My first and only time ever! And snowmobiling too!

And that was truly the holiday that no holiday since has been able to top. I remember sobbing my heart out as our plane went down the Butte runway for takeoff and I left those glorious snow-covered mountains behind to go back to flat, boring Oklahoma. But it wasn’t just a loss of scenery, but a loss of the loving family that surrounded me. It would be a while before I saw them again.

Well, ending this on a happier note, in honor of THIS Christmas, I’m giving away a kindle ebook of my Christmas story, Operation: Enduring Santa.

One lucky commenter will walk away with this book at the end of the day. Just share with me, please, what has been YOUR best Christmas ever and what made it so?

Thank you, Ms. Morgan, and Happy Holidays to all!


Blurb:

USAF fighter pilot Janet Kerrigan is not having a good Christmas. It's bad enough she is stationed in Balad Air Base, Iraq and away from her three-year-old son, but to make matters worse, she has to spend her Christmas day on Combat Air Patrol.

A friend and fellow pilot tells her to make new Christmas memories, and much to Janet's surprise, she does, though not the kind of memories she expects. While flying her F-16 Fighting Falcon in the Iraqi skies, Janet is faced with a difficult choice: follow orders and have the glory or ruin her Air Force career to save Christmas for boys and girls everywhere.

If you wish to know more about me, come check out my Facebook Page!

Monday, December 3, 2012

Win a Piece of Montana - December Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Big Sky, Montana
All across this great state of mine there are craftsmen and women who carve their livelihoods from their imaginations. They do this to illustrate the love they have for the state they live in, and the pride they have for the people who are their neighbors. I would like to share some of that pride with you.

Thank you for sharing the beautiful Montana with me.  And Good Luck!!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Memories of a Western Christmas



A Tumbleweed Christmas and more is featured at my dear friend Andrea Downing's blog.  Drop by for more Christmas stories from the West and more chances to win!  


Blessed be to you and yours this holiday season.
Rionna 


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