Recent Shots

I'm sitting here with Daughter and she has graciously agreed to help me post some photos from Christmas and our recent Mexican vacation.

Hope you enjoy . . .

"Christmas Eve Eve" before church.

Daughter and DSO at Monell's Victorian Christmas. 

Wife's beautiful French Christmas Eve table (above and below). 

Carrying out the French theme.

Younger Son and Daughter relaxing at the pool.

Waiting to go to dinner with Older Son and DIL.

Hola from Mexico!

With my Sweetie at the beach.

Older Son and DIL thanking Wife for a wonderful trip.

Don't you think she looks like me?

My pride and joy.

After our fishing trip. I'm feeling better!

Younger Son's big catch!

Mi Familia Bonita!

Vacation post script

It's almost the middle of January and we have had a warm, rainy weekend here in Middle Tennessee with temperatures in the 70s. That all changes today as a cold front pushes through. Tonight's low is supposed to be in the 30s.

The weather pattern in the entire country has been crazy. Southern California has had an almost unheard-of cold spell and Friday it was colder in San Diego than in Chicago. Go figure.

Wife is more of a weather junkie than I, and can almost always give me up-to-the-minute current conditions, as well as a forecast for the next couple of days. She is also very good about checking the weather in places to which we might be traveling.

To wit, prior to our recent trip to Mexico, she advised me that temperatures would be in the low to mid 80s, and I could govern myself accordingly with regard to clothing.

I did just that and packed shorts and tee shirts. I took one carry-on bag. I wore a pair of jeans on the plane and also stuck in a pair of khaki pants because Wife told me some of the restaurants required them. As it turned out, I could wear jeans, but Wife had read that men would have to wear "long pants" and she interpreted that as something other than jeans. The pants took up very little room in my bag, so it was no big deal.

We had a great time with only two snafus, the first of which was more significant than the other, and it involved the arrival of Older Son and DIL.

On New Year's Eve the other four of us drove from Nashville to Atlanta where we would board a direct flight to Cancun New Year's Day. Our final destination was about 1.5 hours south of Cancun and Wife had arranged for transportation.

Older Son and DIL were flying from Dallas, with a connecting flight in Fort Lauderdale, and were scheduled to arrive a couple of hours before us.

About 5:30 a.m. on January 1, as we were sleeping soundly in our Atlanta hotel room, the phone rang and it was Older Son. He and DIL, who had been at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport since 4 a.m., had learned that their flight to Fort Lauderdale would be delayed, they would miss their flight to Cancun and would not arrive at our destination until the afternoon of January 2.

That was a real bummer for them and for us and they missed an entire day. DIL calculated that it took them 36 hour to get there, start to finish.

Because of their delayed arrival, they did not want to spend a day visiting the Mayan ruins. I didn't want to spend a day away from the family so I decided to nix it also.  There has been discussion of another trip of this sort in the future, so I'm hopeful to have another opportunity to visit the ruins.

The other minor negative involved yours truly. The boys and I had scheduled a fishing trip for Thursday. The night before, they asked me if I should take something for motion sickness.

"Never had motion sickness in my life," I replied smugly, wanting to convey the message to them that their old dad could and would still school them in the art of angling.

We were on the boat for six hours. For approximately five of those hours I had my head between my knees. Miserable.

Why my body decided that I would be prone to such a malady after all these years I will never know, but next time I'll take some precations.

The boys caught some beauties, though, and it was totally worth it. When I could raise my head, I loved seeing them reel them in.

The resort where we stayed was massive and the "all-inclusiveness," i.e. everything is paid for in advance, made for a relaxing time.  The time together as a family was priceless.

Funny thing. I don't care one twit about being in the sun. I do all I can to avoid it by staying under an umbrella and bathing myself in 30 or 50 level sun screen. While I certainly did not burn, I've had lots of comments about how tan I am.

Nobody has said how GOOD I look with that tan, only that I have one. Hmmm. . . .

It was a great way to start the year.

'Twas the Day Before . . .

The Christmas celebration is in full swing at our house. It's Christmas Eve and we are in full preparation mode.

Older Son, DIL and Wife's parents all arrived Saturday about noon.

For close to a year now Daughter has had a significant other who also joins us on special occasions. From henceforth, in keeping with my practice on this blog of giving everyone a "code" name, he shall be known as "DSO" (Daughter's Significant Other).

So DSO is here too. He lives in North Alabama, about an hour and a half from here, and Daughter will join his family tomorrow afternoon.

Younger Son, home from college, has been here a couple of weeks now and has been able to work some at the County Parks and Rec Department where he worked this summer.

So the house is full, as are the hearts of Wife and me.

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We have had an internationally themed Christmas Eve for a number of years now and this year's country is France. Not sure of the menu but Wife is cooking even as I type this while Daughter and DSO are making place cards with our "French" names.

Wife has put a table cloth on the dining room table that we bought in St. Paul de Vince, France when we were there in 2009, and has added a few other touches. 

Details to follow and maybe even pictures.

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We will be having Christmas brunch tomorrow -- that's largely on me, so keep me in your prayers!  We will then do an abbreviated gift exchange, after which we are off to the big screen premier of Les Miserables.

I will tell you that I am skeptical about this movie. "Le Miz" is far and away my all-time favorite stage play and musical and I am afraid the movie will be too much of a Hollywood spectacle and will relegate this wonderful story to the annals of pop culture.

In the words of the Apostle Paul, "May it never be!"

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After the movie it will be back to our house for pizza which we picked up today and put in the refrigerator to heat up. FDIL's parents are joining us for the movie and will join us for the post-movie meal as well.

Wife is not totally comfortable with this -- serving take-out pizza at Christmas. This was largely my idea, wanting to spare her a little of the non-stop cooking that is often the overriding activity of her holiday celebration.

But oh my goodness, we already have leftovers running out our ears -- and will have even more by tomorrow -- and I think come tomorrow night she will be happy with this arrangement. 

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I said "abbreviated gift exchange" above because we elected this year to go on a  trip rather than do full-blown gift giving. When we first started looking into this, we were hoping to perhaps leave today or tomorrow (Christmas Day), but found that traveling the week of Christmas is quite expensive.

So we are postponing "Christmas Vacation" (even though our name is not Griswold) and will leave New Year's Day for Mexico.  I'm not even sure where we are going. I know we are flying into Cancun and it's somewhere south of there.

Sharp readers with sharp memories might remember that I am not a lover of the beach/sun/sand, but I am happily going because (a) I got outvoted; (b) I will love being with my family, wherever we are; and (c) I will have a number of diversions such as visiting the Mayan ruins and fishing.

We drew names for our gifts so everyone will get something tomorrow.

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I did not meet my goal of meeting at least one of my blog friends in person in 2012 but I'm resetting that goal in 2013. I've already told Hong Kong friend Steve to let me know when he's in the U.S. this summer and I'm going to try my best to meet him at a baseball game. Who knows if that will happen but I'll sure try. Any of the rest of you, beware . . . . you never know when I might show up on your doorstep, although you know I've been threatening it for some time now!  Oh well . . . I'll be keeping you in mind whether in person or from afar.

And here in Middle Tennessee at my house, I'm leaving the light on for you.

Merry Christmas -- "Joyeux Noel" -- to all.