At Long Last

Finally, the long awaited recount of our holiday travels. I begin the story with a picture of E doing her magic on the drive from the airport to my Dad's on Christmas Eve. She wanted a white Christmas. I wanted a white Christmas, too, considering that I packed all our snow gear!

Christmas morning at my dad's. The kids started with the stockings:

We did not have a white Christmas, except for the snow already on the ground in the woods. Here is E following a deer path on a walk before dinner:

One day we went ice skating:

My brother J and his partner K took us out to eat one night. It was their non materialistic solution to Christmas commercialism. Look how happy doing something good made them feel:

By "us" I mean my (smug?) brother N and his (inquisitive?)wife J:

...my (crazy?) brother N8 and his lovely wife...er, I mean my loving husband C, and little ol' Moi, behind the camera. N8's wife D couldn't make it this trip. But his iPhone came along. We had lots of fun with that!

We captured the cousins and took them to the Sciencenter the next day as the rest of the family slaved away helping N and J move to their new house. Here is A testing the Bernoulli effect, or trying to dry her hair, or something:

The girls had fun in the Japanese exhibit, wearing kimonos and having a tea- or was it sake?-and sushi party:

Afterward, we had pizza for lunch and then killed some more time at the park by the lake. A is standing there declaring herself too big for merry-go-rounds:

We brought left over pizza crust to feed to the ducks:

Hey, kids, turn around and smile so I can get a picture before you fall in and I have to bring you home to your Mama, wet and frozen! Ok, we all stayed dry, but we did get cold.

We woke up New Year's Eve with snow, finally! Just in time to leave my Dad's and drive to visit my friend Cecile. Of course, we had to clear the snow off the car first. That's why I had kids, don't you know?The girls always have a good time with Cecile's sons. A and J spent many hours out in the cold, hanging out.

E and M had a blast playing catch in the kitchen with a glob of flubber. Here they are begging me to throw it to them:

The New Year was rung in with sparklers in the snow:

And then we went home. The end.