Holiday, part II of III

Ahh...another Christmas holiday come and gone.
The entire family on my mom's side converged upon my grandparents house in Amherst, MA for this holiday - 15 of us! It all went off incredibly smoothly, with wonderful laughter & food.



Here are my cousins Tim and Sam, in a blurry picture from Christmas morning. It's the only one I had with the Christmas tree.
There was a little bit of a tussle over baseball allegancies...my cousin Eric lives in Kansas, and as such just doesn't know any better. It's true - he's a Yankees fan. Uncle Russ put his Yankees calendar in the wood pile for burning. Unfortunately Grandpa didn't understand and thought it had just been carelessly misplaced by one of the kids. So he unwittingly saved it from its firey fate.
Post-presents playing outside in the street. Here are four of the five boy cousins (I'm the other cousin, aside from Curren, and the only XX chromosome represented in this generation). Left to right, Sam, Tim, Chris (my brother), and Eric (the misguided Yankees fan who we love anyway)
Walking down to the pond to play on the ice. Left to right, Aunt Patty, Aunt Meg, Uncle Russ, Grandpa, CurrenTed ran into the woods to get one of the fast-flying toys the boys got for Christmas. Russ is ready with his slippers. Shortly after this, Ted was struck in the face with said fast-flying toy causing bleeding.

Tomorrow my brother heads back to Bend, Oregon. On Wednesday I fly out to Bangkok, Thailand to begin part III of III for this vacation season. It's been a lovely trip back east to visit with family and relish the beautiful beautiful New England weather.

vacation: part 1 of 3.

Tonight's my last night in northern Maine, up here on East Grand Lake in Danforth with my dad brother, and Donna.
Things done:
-snowmachining with dad to get a christmas tree
-decorating said charlie brown christmas tree
-hooking up the new 'entertainment center' that dad and donna built (picture to come)
-baptist church service this morning
-shoveled snow off of the roofs of seven cabins and the house
-coffee in houlton at the organic grocery store where they still don't make enough money to actually pay the employees, but happily they're in business another year
-watched football on the new hdtv (fancy-shmancy). oh, and tom brady is amazing. it's reiterated that he's an amazing quarterback, and really hot (only when he has a hat on)
-discovered the best movie ever, fever pitch, combining two of my favorite genres: romantic comedy and inspirational sport. even better is that the sports end is all red sox!!
-recieved a phatty new grundens sweatshirt from dad for christmas
-thoroughly enjoyed the maine accents...i wish i could bring it home with me.

so sad to go, but i'll be back. someday soon it will have to be for longer than four days. i want to do an extended east coast stay, including a trip to nova scotia and newfoundland.

happy solstice!

so somehow i posted a few post-defense pictures to my little brother's blog (which he himself doesn't ever ever update...)


http://valleyoftherogue.blogspot.com/


i'm currently sittin' on the couch at my dad's, watching high definition television with my brother. i more or less just woke up after days and days of waaaay too little sleep (though completely not regretted..). the sun is shining out on the snow and it's nearly blinding - this morning i felt so disorientated.
the agenda is pretty chill -
take a shower, do some laundry.
go snowmobiling (as they call it down here) with dad and get a christmas tree
knit
head down east tomorrow with chris to say hello to the ocean
apply to jobs
generally kick it with my wonderful family who i have missed dearly!!!

it's unfortunate when good people are spread across the country/world as you can't be two places at once (try as you might). that being said, i'm always reminded that you indeed CAN come home again, both literally and figuratively. home is truly where your heart is, and that can move with you - keeping all good people in your heart till you see them again.

happy solstice!!