2012 in Atlanta with the Kids

As a P.S. to the Michigan trip, because it makes a good segue, here's what my post is today at Vision and Verb:  Dance Like No One is watching!

Thanks to Michelle, the official wedding photographer, for these close-ups!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

That was Saturday night at Pumpkin Creek.  HA!  On Sunday, we flew from Michigan to Georgia to spend the rest of our vacation in the Atlanta area.  We had 5 days with friends Bob and Peggy south of the city (next post), while Dennis and Amy worked and Nicholas was in school, but the rest of the time, before and after, we were with "the kids."

So on that first Sunday, NICHOLAS.  Can you believe he's now 12 years old (7th grade)!  Here's the segue from those Dancing Queens above:

"C'mon, G'ma," he said.  Let's dance!"  And we did, 2 different times.  

Dance Like No one is Watching, indeed!

And while Amy was preparing supper that first night, we were all over each other!

Pure Tom-Foolery.  Pure Love.

We ♥ each other.  We ♥ YOU.

This is our Atlanta family:  son Mark, daughter Amy, SIL Dennis,

g'son Nicholas, Oscar the White and CC the Chocolate Chip.

And Astrid, too, of course!

In fact, half of all the photos you see in this post are taken by her!

Nicholas off to school, in the neighborhood pool, putting puzzles together

(yup, we brought with us two 150-pc Jan van Haasteren puzzles),

watching movies....

...while the rest of us kids played our on-going battle of Spades.

Mark and me against Amy and Dennis, every year.

(click any collage to enlarge)

After our week with Bob and Peggy (next post), we came back for the Labor Day holiday weekend, with Saturday football in the wings for all.  Nicholas made Astrid promise her she'd wake him bright and early to get ready for all the games.  He had a plan:

Here's the scoop:  Uof Michigan is for moi! 

USC (Southern California) is for Dennis.

GA (UofGeorgia) is for Mark.

After all the school signs were made (Oregon included for Nicholas?!?!),

banner flags were also made and strung up.

This was serious stuff.

And if that wasn't serious enough, Nicholas dressed up as a USC Trojan.

I stood my ground, of course, hailing Michigan as the Valiant Heroes.

The next day, Sunday, we had planned to Shoot the Hooch for Labor Day weekend fun,
but because thunderstorms were predicted, we decided to go bowling instead.
That's when we all remembered how much we enjoy doing that as a family!
It was Astrid's first time to bowl in 21 years.  She LOVED it!

In between, Amy cooked and I cooked.

No one ever went hungry!

And once everything calmed down again for the week, Astrid and I went off to meet friends:

Bob and Marc, forever friends, sharing ups and downs.

And Glenna, my first ex after my divorce from Bill...meeting Astrid for the first time.

Next we hope we can meet her wife from England...who's in the same boat as Astrid,

not able to move to the States till America allows marriage equality.

Guess how we're voting come November?!

The day we flew back (late) to Amsterdam, there were cleaners at the house, so Astrid and I went to the movies (if Amy weren't sick, ready to travel for work the next week, she would have joined us):

They don't have theaters like this in the Netherlands, so Astrid took lots of pictures

before we saw the delightful "Hope Springs" with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones.

She even took pictures of me at the drive-thru ATM!  

We're not in Holland, you realize.

Now, see that Thank-You stand above?

Next time I'll be more careful with what I say.  HA.
But this is the first time Astrid took a video that I uploaded...
from the little point-n-shoot camera we took for this entire American trip.
Just to say we did it!

Shortly after the movie it was time to say Good-Bye to The Kids...until next year!  As Mark drove us to the airport, we passed through Atlanta's Mid- and Downtown areas:

 Pay attention!

Next week I plan to finish our American trip with the 5 days we spent at Bob and Peggy's...
who visited us here in the Netherlands last year.  Remember? 
One fun thing we did with them was walk around Downtown Atlanta midst those skyscrapers!

In the meantime, don't forget the Dancing Queens at Vision and Verb, today!

 

Christmas Past

You knew I would eventually get back to OUR Christmas at home, right?! I've now completed 4 of the 5 Christmas albums from here there and everywhere. THIS is from home, way back on Sunday the 23rd. So, yes, I've been going backwards in time.

I think I told you that Donica's job is always the hors d'oeuvres. She's the Queen of them. So everyone came early, around noon, to start enjoying the day.

After hors d'oeuvres was the Christmas stockings. Actually, Donica does those and she's Queen of them as well. In fact , the kids say they enjoy them as much as the "real" presents. And besides, this is the one time when everyone can "open" their stockings at the same time. No one has to wait.
And then Nicholas gets to open all his gifts because he always has the most. And we all watch him. Kids!

BUT when the rest of us start opening our gifts, we have a tradition: one gift at a time, one person at a time, going around the room till they're all opened. I can't stand free-for-all gift opening! After all the time and energy and thought put into the gifts, each for the other, there needs to be some careful respect. That's my motto!

Besides, some gifts are so touching, everyone has to look and see...

...and laugh, together!

There's even time to discover and explore and pay attention.

Then we all went outside. This year, the weather was NICELY permitting!

Mark and Dennis threw the football...

...while Donica and Amy held down the fort, Nicholas tried out his new Nintendo DS game, and G'ma took the pictures.

Speaking of G'ma, lucky her, she gets to show you HER special gift of the day: another photo book from Amy (remember last year's on our Castles of Scotland?!). This one is a compilation of photos I took of her and Mark from when she was age 0-13. Can you imagine THAT! OMG! How can she top that, two years in a row!

And speaking of Amy, here she is after all that outside fresh air, fixing the spinach salad for the Christmas dinner. That's always her dinner contribution. It's to die for!

My part was the traditional pot of Chicken Paprikash that we all grew up on from their dad's mom years ago. Though a Hungarian poor-man's dish, it suddenly became what we all decided was our favorite dish after the divorce. Once a year at Christmas!

It's one of the few times we actually eat in the dining room! If you squint, you can see that Nicholas really IS there, on the other side of Donica.

Later, after the dishes are done and there's room in our stomachs, Mark's from-scratch pumpkin pie comes out! He's the King of our desserts in the same way Donica is the Queen of our hors d'oeuvres. We ALWAYS save room for his pumpkin pie. It's a no-brainer.

By the last bite, we've just finished 8 hours together! A beautiful memory of family time, now with Dennis included! He fits right in, of course. He doesn't need to be married to Amy YET to be part of the family. But that'll come quickly. June 1 is not that far away, as we all know.

**********

In the here and now, Donica and I are both safe-n-sound in Amsterdam. On Wednesday evening, Tracy/Lurch from the UK, part of my Shutterchance photoblog (SC), arrives by plane for a couple days here at the apartment. On Friday, Astrid and Scarlet, the Dutch Girls, will join us for fun and games. A mini-SC meet-up!

Life is always exciting, isn't it! How could I ask for more?!