Happy New Year!

Our extended family Christmas party was on January 1st this year.  It was also the day Jonge became six years old.  It was a lovely day all around.  In fact, I think it just may have been as close to perfect as a family Christmas party could be.  A few loved ones were missing, but we all made sure to eat hardy for them.  Such a kind and loving family we are.
So, after everyone had gone home I down loaded the hundreds of pictures that I took.   Everyone is either completely washed out or a funky shade of yellowish-gold.  That also happened with my Christmas day pictures, so I was a wee bit sad about that.  It's all about the light and our basement has fluorescent lights and yellow walls, so I guess we should have moved the party to the backyard.  Someday I'll work on turning the pictures into black and white, which should help.
Surprisingly enough, after a time of feeling bad about my pictures, THGGM and I realized that he was ON VACATION!  Usually when he has an early January vacation he spends it snow-blowing while I recline on the couch complaining of either a horrific cough or a migraine.  Sometimes both.  I'm loads of fun like that.
But not this time!  Oh, my.  Did we EVER have a wonderful vacation.  And this is how it started...
THGGM woke up first, made the coffee and lite the fire place.  Then I got up and we jumped up and down on the furniture yelling 'we are on vacation' at the top of our lungs.  Okay, so that didn't literally happen, but that is what we were doing in our hearts.  What actually happened was we huddled on our ends of the couch and smiled and sighed and reminded each other that if we wanted to we could sit on the couch all day long until it was time to go to bed.  Then we argued about who should get off the couch and let the dog back in.  This conversation always goes like this:
Me:  Zeke is barking.
THGGM:  So let him in.
Me:  I let him out.
THGGM:  So.
Me:  While you are letting him in, could you get me some more coffee?
THGGM:  He's not my dog.
Me:  Do you want more coffee?
THGGM:  Yes, please.
Me:  Well while you are getting it, could you let Zeke in?
THGGM:  NO.
Now in the middle of this lively and extremely interesting conversation, the phone rings.  It is Daughter.  January 2nd was Daughter and Son-in-law's 8th wedding anniversary.  She wondered if we would like to watch their children while they went to Bone Fish Grill for dinner.
(what?  and leave all this?)
The rest of our week involved A LOT and I mean A LOT of great thrift/antique shopping.  The weather was GORGEOUS for Michigan in January.  We had a WONDERFUL time.
But, I must tell you that almost every morning began with the conversation above.