This one was a very, very good day right up until the last couple of hours when my middle girl started hurting bad, again. I shot more than three hundred pictures and video
AND YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT EVERY ONE OF THEM!
justkidding
But you do have to look at these ones.
Ok. This was the drive to my Dad's place. See that cloud ahead of us?
This is us driving (and my husband sneezing) in it.
This was our tree on Christmas Eve. I worked all night to get those little photo ornaments right. I had to sift through all our old pictures and it took forever. By the time I did that, got the stockings stuffed, cookies baked (pineapple drop cookies, a family recipe) and everything under the tree, it was after three in the morning. To stay in the mood, I kept a local radio station playing on our TV (cable), all holiday music, all night long. Everything was perfect when everyone woke up the next morning. Even had coffee brewing.
And after all that work, the kids reduced the packages to a gift-wrap rubble in a half hour.
This is my in-laws lava lamp. We gave it to them many years ago. I just like the shot.
Up until the end of the day, when my middle girl started hurting again, it was all smiles. There were no fights - even the ex and I didn't send one single cheerfully-contemptuous jab at each other. It's a little bittersweet, because it may not be like this next year. One very close, very important branch of the family is on the verge of separation and divorce, which will cause a great deal of turmoil. This may be the last one where all of us are together in one place at one time.
