Christmas, 2012

We're just home from a week of traveling.  We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home, going to church, visiting family and neighbors, entertaining Sherry and her family for Christmas Dinner, giving and receiving gifts.

Here's a picture of the wonderfulness that I received from this year's SSCS swap -- I'm a charter member of this group and each year it is wonderful.  I was assigned to make goodies for someone on a different continent; I made her a tote bag and a hand-crafted ornament, but I've not heard back from her whether she liked them.  My name was given to dear Annette in Oz, and she sent me the darling stocking that held the blue FQ, the wee zip-tote, and the Australian birds calendar.  The main gift that she made for me was just amazing -- she made a block tote out of lovely CW fabric appliqued in a William Morris-like motif!  I was so delighted with Annette's thoughtfulness.

Bright and early on the 26th, Joe, Blackberry, and I left home to visit Richmond, Virginia.  We had to make a stop at the local camera shop -- Joe had given me a wonderful new digital camera but it had a bit of a problem that we needed to have fixed.  That took us some time, but soon enough we were on our way and we arrived in Richmond just it time to sit down to a delicious pasta dish Anastasia had made.

I couldn't wait to try out my new camera and this wonderful subject, Nate, was readily available!  We spent two nights staying at a motel that is very close to Tom and Anastasia's home.  It is a bare bones kind of place, but for $49 per night, we had a clean, well-heated room, excellent mattresses, comfy pillows, a fine shower, a free breakfast that we did not indulge in, and permission to have the dog stay!  One morning Joe helped Tom do install a new fixture in the powder room and the second morning they did some work under the kitchen sink.  Anastasia took me up to Quilting Adventures, where I'm a faithful but infrequent customer, and I bought some FQs and a couple of yards of "finish the bolt sale" Kona Snow.

We arrived home on Wednesday evening and on Friday afternoon we set south again, this time to Alexandria where Sherry and family had already arrived to spend New Year's with Andrew and his family.  Another most photogenic subject, Eli, awaited me.

We did presents again, and of course there was more eating and merriment.  Andrew's guest quarters were filled by Sherry's family, so Joe and I used our Holiday Inn points to stay at a nearby hotel.  It was more grand that most Holiday Inns and for some reason, we were upgraded to a suite!  That was kind of fun.  We received a complimentary breakfast one day but took most of our meals with the family.

One afternoon we went to the Botannical Garden to see the trains exhibit, which was really very nice, and then wandered through several of the other exhibits.  There were so many of us that we had to caravan in two vehicles, and the kids were all such good travelers.

We thought about going to see the National Christmas Tree and the MLK Memorial, but parking was an issue and some of our personnel were feeling a bit under the weather, so we elected to go home and some of us went over to run around in the park instead.

One night we went down to Old Town for dinner and after the meal visited a shop or two and then walked back to our cars by way of the marina.  I enjoyed trying out my new camera again.

Another night we went out to view some rather ostentatious Christmas decorations.  I forgot to take my camera, but Joe had his, and I'll share pics in another post.

So here we are at the start of a new year, having had a wonderful week with our children.  I'm fortunate to have another day before I need to return to work.

I wish my readers much happiness and only good, good things in 2012!