Time to Relax

At least I hope so. This has been a very busy couple of weeks for us.  Yesterday was wonderful.  The only thing that could have made it better was if Ronnie had been off work.  He was supposed to be, but some things happened at the hospital and he needed to go in on Christmas Day.  And Christmas Eve, but we already knew about that one.

Yesterday morning we had a family brunch with Aunt Wii and Unc, and their 3 boys, 1 daughter in law, grandson, and Aunt Wii's Mom.  After sampling a bit of everything Ronnie got ready for work and Paige and I left to go visit family.  We had a 45 minute drive. Paige watched her new Snow White DVD on the way.  First stop was my parents house.  Paige opened her Princess dress up trunk.  She immediately started taking off clothes to get dressed up.  She was half naked (only panties & a turtleneck on) when she realized she didn't have any shoes.  She looked at Grammy and said, "But what about the shoes?"  My child must have shoes for everything!  We told her to just put her clothes on and get dressed, that we would worry about shoes later.  Next she opened the matching shoe boutique.  Life was good.  We left Grammy & Grumpy's house to go to Granny's.  (That would be Mom's Mom.)

Let me tell you about Granny's Christmas tree.  It's been up in the living room, which we only really use on Christmas, for 10 years.  It's decorated with ornaments, Mardi Gras beads, and Easter eggs.  I walked into the living room this year to find it gone.  In it's place was a tree put together by Aunt Glennis and my cousin Stephine.  It was beautiful.  A pre-lit, revolving tree decorated with bright colored squares.  As I got closer, I could see that each square was filled with a picture.  Lots and lots of pictures.

A picture of my grandmother at 21.

My grandfather's going hunting in his Caddy.

My graduation from Army Basic Training.

Granny & Paw Paw's 25th anniversary pictures.  I'm the cute blonde in green.

And their 50th.  Wonder why they weren't holding me and Nancy this time.

My Aunt Shari who was killed less than a year after this picture was taken.

Pictures that were amazing to look at.  Each picture was printed in black and white.  Kleenex should have been placed next to the tree.  My favorite gift this year?  A CD of all the pictures on the tree and more.  The gift exchange and gumbo that came after were good.  It was nice to see Paige have a Christmas like I remember it.  In Granny's house running around with my cousins having a great time.  I want her to have memories like this when she grows up.

Our final Mississippi stop was to see Ronnie's parents.  They got a new dog from the pound for Christmas.  He was in doggy prison for eating the chocolate covered cherries at his last house.  Paige brought him some treats so that he could eat something a bit more appropriate.  We spent some time with them then headed home.  We finally made it home well after Paige's bedtime.  In fact, she was asleep before we ever got to the interstate to drive home.

Today Ronnie's older sister Connie stopped by for breakfast.  She brought her husband and daughter as well.  We ate, then watched the 2 girls play Wii for a bit.  Connie wasn't feeling well, so she headed home.  We had a good visit though.  I'm sure you were probably expecting pictures of our Christmas.  I'll blog those when I finally download them from my camera, including telling what Santa brought.  For my Facebook friends, you can see all of the pictures  in the Old Family Pictures album if you want.