Christmas with the Carters | Part 1

As a refresher...after spending Christmas proper with my family in VA and then having a post-Christmas party with my family in NY, we drove over to Shrewsbury, MA to celebrate Christmas #3 and New Years with the Carters. Ash, Court and Maddie had to stay in CA, but the remnant did our part to make sure the eating, gift opening and Phase 10 playing went on.

Opening Gifts...



Jacque and Clyde had a beautiful quilt made of all of Mac's old softball t-shirts and a few other meaningful shirts. Very cool!






Clyde's favorite gift from us (right!), his 2009 Obama calendar.





Our makeshift stockings...very cute



A lovely pink tree courtesy of Aunt Leslie. :-)

Sorry for the delay...

We left our camera charger in VA and I just now got it back. We'll recharge and have the last of our Xmas extravaganza pics and more updates soon...

Rough Week

While I emerged from our winter break feeling rested and rejuvenated, this first week back at work has pulled me right back into a tired, stressed out place.

* A tight deadline is made tighter thanks to uncooperative authors.
* One of my staff is making me crazy.
* Some of the agencies we work with are dropping the ball, leading to all sorts of issues.
* Meetings upon meetings have prevented me from crossing very basic things off my to-do list.
* Worst of all, 4 wonderful members of our team were let go this week, including my absolutely fantastic boss. He was a real ally of mine, a good sounding board, honest, funny and affirming of me even when I thought I was going nuts. The redesign I've been working so hard on wouldn't have happened without him.

All this to say: I'm pretty sad, I haven't been sleeping well, I'm stressed and I swear I've noticed more gray hair in the last 3 days.

There are some rays of hope and good news...
* My friend Jessica just got offered a job teaching ESL in Virginia Beach
* The first issue of the redesign finally arrived and looks beautiful

Please pray for my friends and colleagues looking for work and pray for me as I try to hold it together and persevere.

Check Please!

We interrupt these winter break posts to inform our blog followers of some very important news:

Several months ago we went to La Encantada, a Mexican restaurant in Humboldt Park, with the Browns. That happened to be the evening the restaurant was being filmed for Check Please!, a popular culinary review program in Chicago. After joking about how funny it would be if we ended up on TV, a clip featuring the 4 of us is now on the Check Please! website.

We're shortly after the "crepes with mole" part of the clip, which you can view here.

Woo hoo!



[more winter break posts to come]

Winter Break | Bye Rochester!

As our last family act in upstate NY we went to Olympia, a tasty breakfast place near Donna and Jim's house. We took up several large booths. :-)

It was a nice send-off before taking off for Massachusetts.



[Tiara LOVES bacon]

Winter Break | Family Party at Suzanne's

We haven't been able to make it to upstate NY for our family Christmas party since my Grandmother moved down to VA a few years ago. This year, however, we made it a priority to go and catch up with our cousins from Lockport and Rochester.

This is the Cafarelli side of the family, made up of my grandma, her four sisters and their descendants. Here is a nice shot of the remaining sisters: Connie, Irma and Antoinette.



The family party rotates homes each Christmas and this year, Suzanne hosted. We were all asked to come dressed in our Christmas PJs and bring an ornament to exchange. There was PLENTY of wonderful food, wine and sweets. As a special treat for the kids, Suzanne (inspired by Paula Deen), helped each of them make mini-pies...cherry, apple and chapple (a cherry, apple mix). :-)




It's always been a tradition for Santa to pay a visit to the younger kids after dinner and this year was no different. Over time, pretty much all the men in the family have worn the red suit and beard and one point, and Heath's moment to shine finally came. With the fat pouch, suit, beard, glasses and appropriate makeup, even my grandma didn't recognize him. We are pretty sure that Violet knew it was him. His "ho, ho, hos" were very authentic and the family agreed that he did a wonderful job.







More pictures!

Winter Break | Road Trippin'

Many of you know that our break consists of several road trips:

Chicago to DC

DC to Rochester, NY

Rochester to Shrewsbury, MA (outside of Boston)

Shrewsbury back to Chicago

That's 11 hours, 7 hours, 7 hours and 14 hours respectively. Woo hoo!

[our view]



Lucky for us, Violet is great in the car and after years of road trips, Heath and I are road warriors equipped with music, snacks and the right constitutions for long hours in the car. Bringing it back to Violet, though... Mom got her a new pillow "bed" for Christmas and it was perfect for the car. Violet was just high enough to lay and people watch out the window at the same time.