THE NEXT WAVE

The day after Christmas, we celebrated with Ted, Bev, their children, and the grandmas, Eunice and Ruth, who are family members of Kristanne’s boys, Austin and Alec. Las Vegas is a long way to go for a visit and Murphys is much closer for them.

Alec and Austin with cousins Abby and Daniel. (Ted is visible in he background.) The kids are sucking orange juice up through a peppermint stick “straw”.

After dinner, the gift exchange. Grandma Eunice gave Austin what looked like a huge bag of cash. But, hidden inside the bag was a family tradition. This year Austin got “the ugly cup.”

It has been a tradition for several generations In Eunice’s family for someone to pass on the ugly cup at Christmas. It is inscribed with these words: “I had a choice of being rich or good lookin'” Austin will now have to pass it on next year. She gave college-age grandson Alec, a gift-card of gas for his car. What clever gifts!

The boys enjoyed the Guinness Book of World Records Austin received from his cousin Owen, who is in Italy.

Bev and her Mom.

Then, later in the day, Austin in his new pajamas, texting.

Mason, texting.

Alec texting.

Emil texting.

Naturally, boys love to wrestle and/or show off their strength. Alec is a student but he works full-time as a manager of a Golds Gym. So, it isn’t all texting.

Next, is Christmas with my nearby siblings.  I absolutely love the holidays and the extended family get-togethers.

 

THE CLAN GATHERS

Our family reunions tend to be long affairs, as much as we can put into a long weekend-plus. And, families can include lifelong friends as well as relatives we’ve learned over the years.
Ken, his wife Laurie, three teens and two dogs left Las Vegas at  4 A.M. and arrived around three P.M. Thursday. Over 9 hours of driving with a couple of rest stops.

Consider totally jet lagged Romain Chemiere, who flew from his native France to Las Vegas and arrived Wednesday. He slept most of the day and evening June 30th, only to be loaded into a car with my son’s family for a long road trip yesterday. He is the son of Catherine (Carre) Chemiere. She is the AFS sister to my youngest daughter Virginia.
Romain will spend a month with  family members in the US.

Grandson Stewart was hep. He brought his uke and guitar, so we are in for a treat. He and his brother are both credible musicians.

Son Ken did most of the driving and was stifling yawns and struggling to stay awake.

Makes you wonder if  dogs suffer jet lag? Probably not. They just seem to go with the flo. They do bark, however, but this pregnant doe browsed the weedy side yard for a snack when all was a bit quiet.

Deer are pretty common visitors, but the night before, we determined we had a noisy, growling, grunting bear in the yard. Possibly two. Couldn’t see  clearly in the dark, to be certain. A neighbor dog inspected the yard with his hackles up for several minutes in the morning. And, every dog in the neighborhood was sounding an alarm. They’ve been spotted nearby. Its the time of year before the wild blackberries ripen, my orchard isn’t fruiting either. Its their hungriest time. They like the compost pile and other succulent plants. We just have to hope they don’t like dogs for snacks.