Seems like I just got off the boat from the cruise in early December and already Christmas with my two boys and their families and then New Year in VA are over. Where does the time go?
We had my son Nick, his wife Nellie and his two kids over for five days culminating in Christmas morning when they had to leave to go back to MI. It was probably the best Christmas we've had with them in years. Randy, Tracy and my mom came down on the Sunday in the middle of that. Family pictures were taken by a professional photographer, a friend of Chris and Nick. The initial proofs look awesome and the whole affair was done with minimal drama, which was a nice surprise.
Monique and I shared a couple of nice quiet alone days for the rest of the week and then we headed down to VA to spend 5 days with her family. Sadly, I knew that my free time was going to be minimal so I didn't let anyone know I was down there. Much as I hated an opportunity to hang out with my VA friends, I knew it wasn't going to happen so I didn't set up any kind of pressure by letting people know I was down there. :-(
The time was used up almost entirely with family as expected. It was low key (mostly) but it did indeed use up almost all my time, so I made the right call. We had my niece and nephew in our care for a few of the days and we took them out to Chuck E Cheese, played games with them, watched TV with them and on the third try made it to the movie Frozen. We played cards with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law a few times. We went for dinner at a niece's new condo. We did some last minute Christmas shopping. We all stayed in for a quiet New Year Eve and went to bed early. All in all, it was pretty quiet, but nice.
I'm not a big one for introspection about the past year and the upcoming new one. I tend to monitor that as the year is going on. I don't make resolutions. I resolved years ago to give up on New Year resolutions. So far, so good. ;-)
Back to the grind. Happy New Year!
We had my son Nick, his wife Nellie and his two kids over for five days culminating in Christmas morning when they had to leave to go back to MI. It was probably the best Christmas we've had with them in years. Randy, Tracy and my mom came down on the Sunday in the middle of that. Family pictures were taken by a professional photographer, a friend of Chris and Nick. The initial proofs look awesome and the whole affair was done with minimal drama, which was a nice surprise.
Monique and I shared a couple of nice quiet alone days for the rest of the week and then we headed down to VA to spend 5 days with her family. Sadly, I knew that my free time was going to be minimal so I didn't let anyone know I was down there. Much as I hated an opportunity to hang out with my VA friends, I knew it wasn't going to happen so I didn't set up any kind of pressure by letting people know I was down there. :-(
The time was used up almost entirely with family as expected. It was low key (mostly) but it did indeed use up almost all my time, so I made the right call. We had my niece and nephew in our care for a few of the days and we took them out to Chuck E Cheese, played games with them, watched TV with them and on the third try made it to the movie Frozen. We played cards with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law a few times. We went for dinner at a niece's new condo. We did some last minute Christmas shopping. We all stayed in for a quiet New Year Eve and went to bed early. All in all, it was pretty quiet, but nice.
I'm not a big one for introspection about the past year and the upcoming new one. I tend to monitor that as the year is going on. I don't make resolutions. I resolved years ago to give up on New Year resolutions. So far, so good. ;-)
Back to the grind. Happy New Year!