Holiday Report

Bless me blog for I have sinned. It has been 37 days since my last posting.....

ok so it's been a while, right? Many of you know that is not like me, so it seems I have a bit of catching up to do.

First on the list is the Holiday Report!

Our holidays were lovely. You saw our very fake tree... well we liked it so much we didn't take it down till... um... this is kind of embarrassing..... Jan 26th! Yes, a whole month after Christmas Day. I wasn't ready to get rid of it right after Christmas or even New Years because we didn't put it up till Dec 12th. Plus, you know, we were busy. Hence the lack of blog posts.

Elvis and Monkey after little kitty fight on Christmas Day... siblings...

Anyway, we both had lots of time off work. We stayed at home by ourselves on the 24th and 25th. Exchanged gifts. Ate LOTS of food. Watched Movies. It was a White Christmas in Chicago. On the 26th we drove to Columbus, OH to have a gathering with the Nyktas's. There was about 2 feet of snow here, but the day we left it began to warm up. All down 65 South there was lots of post-holiday traffic and fog. At some points the visibility was only 1/16th of a mile! The drive took a bit longer than expected, but it was an adventure.

Visiting with Steve's family was great, as usual. The temperature there rose to almost 70 F that day begging us to go outside, follow the kids as they rode their bikes up and down the street, and play some catch and monkey-in-the-middle in the yard. They guys worked on Louis's car and most of the ladies stayed inside with the babies. All of our fun and games came to a grinding halt when it was discovered that Otis, the family black lab, had somehow found and devoured the pumpkin pies that I had brought for dessert.... And you probably already know that my pumpkin pies are not from a can. Some tears were shed and twenty minutes later everything was fine. It really was no one's fault and obviously Otis could not help himself. (I still love him.) We enjoyed some lamb that George cooked on the grill and we had plenty of sweets made by Lynn, so we were not deprived of our holiday sugar.

Isaias, 7 mos


Drew, Lydia, & Eric, 8 mos

Vee with Yiayia Helen

the whole Nyktas clan


warm enough for Carly & Vee to ride bikes


Otis


my favorite photo of Miss Carly

The rest of the trip was all fun 'n' games in Cincinnati seeing the rest of Steve's family and our friends Forest, Ann, and their two kids. Usually we do a weekend in MI and a weekend in Cinci, trying to cram everyone into a day or too. This was a much more low key, slower paced, several days with some time to relax in between. In 2009 we will do Thanksgiving with members of the Nyktas family, and Christmas in Michigan.

George is swimming in grandchildren. Here he is with Emma.

self portrait with my sweet fiance

Also worthy of mentioning: Just a week before Christmas my little sister turned 21! I took a snowy train to South Bend to have a lovely dinner with her and my mom at the Studebaker Mansion, now called Tippecanoe Place. The mansion is absolutely GORGEOUS! and so is my sister.

Catherine, my "shyvester"