December 24th - Santa

Just a short post to share a couple of pictures.  We went to the mall and got Santa pictures of the kids.  This is my last entry for December and 2018 in general.  It'll be the last post dropping in August 2019.

December 22 - Gingerbread Houses.

It has always been a family tradition for Laurie to make gingerbread houses with the kids at Christmas.  Lots of mess and lots of fun.  the boys had gingerbread Batcaves.  We made a trip to the house to check on things.  It was very cold out there that day.  Brett showed off the lights on the house.

Add caption

Done

"Save some for your house"

Lights

Mimi feeding Dash

December 18th - The revels continue. Cupcakes and a pinata

On this morning, the kids got to beat a pinata to death and then enjoy cupcakes.  Of course Eliza had to have one.

December 16th -Christmas in Minnesota

You can imagine with a large blended family how complex the scheduling of Christmas must be.  We never had that problem.  We did Nana's on Christmas Eve and our house on Christmas.  So, Eliza's family Christmas was on the 16th.  We would be back in California by the 25th.  Toys, toys, toys.  Clothing too, and everybody got into the act, even little Dash and the puppy.  My cat was able to avoid everything and stayed in the room.  It was great and I didn't have to coordinate anything.

The tree

Goodies!!!

Something for Santa

Rippin...

Showin...

It's hard to get them all in one pic

Barkley

Probably glad to be missing it all.

Early December - 07 - 15th -Traveling

On the 7th we made a trip with Amy to Los Algodones.  Had a great time as usual.  Life was normal most if that week.  I saw a really nice Mustang at the local Walmart.  Spent some time and put out Christmas decorations at the camper. Then we flew out to the frozen tundra landing in Minneapolis and being picked up by a gaggle of little ones.  It was cold.  Snow on the ground but we did have a great sunset in Moorhead.

The border gate

Los Algodones

Deco

Sweet '69

Beautiful Minnesota sunset

The great Malaise - Doldrums.

Newton's laws of motion in play here.  Not moving don't want to.  But I gotta kick it in the rear and get back to this.

It was December.  Things were pretty crazy, we went home for Corbin's birthday and Christmas.  Then back to Rio Bend.  We weren't doing much else as Laurie's health was getting worse even though I wasn't aware of the degree.  The result was a lot of hanging out at home more.

A few months went by and I wasn't blogging.  Then we lost her and everything became completely crazy

This blog has always been a theraputic outlet for me, so it's in my best interests to continue.

So, here we go..  More to follow.