Christmas 2006

A fairly recent tradition to my Cajun Christmas holidays is the game Pictionary! Every year when I come home, my sister's boyfriend, Dean and his two kids come over for the highly anticipated event of the year! It's usually the boys vs. girls. The boys team this year consisted of Dean, his son Matt, and my nephews Andy and Philip. The girls team consisted of me, my sister Monica, Dean's daughter Lexie, and Andy's girlfriend Lauren. Although the guys were fired up and actually leading for the first half of the game, the girls made an astounding comeback and crushed the guys. Wounds were licked and a challenge issued for next year. . .

Christmas morning saw me awakened at 6:00 a.m. to the excited chatter of kids opening Santa gifts! OK, for those of you who know me well, you know that I would've gotten up that early anyway! It was pretty fun to see them opening gifts and get a preview of what kind of stuff I'd be playing for the next week and a half that I'm here!! As coordinated as I am, I'm a little leary of the pogo sticks!

I hate buying gifts just for the sake of buying gifts for a holiday, so this year I collected memories over the year and gave them as gifts for Christmas! I spent quality time with many of my family members this year, so it was fairly easy to put together digital books of our experiences. I made a book for Andy (and one for Alexis) of our backpacking trip to Europe this summer, a book for Julia and Gavin of their first trip to Colorado, and a book for Monica of our trip to Hawaii this fall. Poor Philip was the only one who didn't get a book. Not because we didn't spend time together, but because we didn't do anything all that exciting while he was in Colorado this summer. We shoveled lots of rocks, but we never made it to the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame or to the Figure Skating Museum. He's dying to go though (NOT!), so I promised him I'd take him this summer!!!! Anyway, if you want to make really professional looking photo books with a personalized dust jacket, check out this website (www.blurb.com).

Although the weather was in the 60s the first day I got here, we have been in the low 50s and upper 40s ever since. Although chilly, I took my brother's HD Road King out for a spin this afternoon. I was a popsicle after an hour, but what a nice ride!!! I'm hoping to get a few more rides in before it starts raining in a few days.

That's it for now. I'll check back in in a couple of days and let yall know what I've been up to. I hope everyone is having a great holiday season and is looking forward to the New Year!