Holiday Report part I

12-30-09 vacation brain
The weather forecast the week of Christmas looked dismal here in the Midwest. Rain, ice and snow were predicted on top of the 15 inches of snow we already had on the ground in Des Moines.

Luckily Greg was able to drive to Des Moines on Monday evening and telecommute for the two days before our vacation, so at least we knew the two of us would be together for Christmas.

We were on notice to see if my brother-in-law would be able to fly into Des Moines Thursday late afternoon, and then we were waiting to see if we three would be able to drive up to northern Iowa to meet up with the rest of the family.

As it turned out, Hunt did not come to Des Moines and Greg and I did beat the ice storm and drove to Charles City Thursday mid day in rain. Our weather on Christmas day was a mix of rain, ice and snow and the seven of us, minus Hunt, were able to carry on our family traditions.

One new surprise came after our Christmas morning breakfast, as we finished up at the table, my niece and nephew excused themselves for a few minutes. When they returned they were dressed in “elf” costumes and proceeded to get the gifts out from under the tree and sorted into our individual piles by our designated seats.


They even had an outfit for the cat, but he didn’t much like the reindeer hat.

This year, a new tradition began with Christopher being in charge of cooking the turkey and he also made a wonderful sweet-potato dish. We ate well with my sister's potatoes and the addition of Mom's dressing and frozen summer sweet corn, and her Creme de Menthe pie for dessert.

(PS: Chris will never let you take a "normal" picture of him... he is always making faces!... also he has learned to cook to survive on his own... he continues to work out daily and has kept his Marine physique over the last year. Boy does he have some muscle.)



continued tomorrow....