Cousins Holiday Dinner

Once again, I treated the young adult cousins to dinner before they all had to return to their grownup lives. What a great group of professionals and students. We had a very nice visit and were stuffed with food.

Kudos to Jamies Grandmother Dennison who coicidentally was dining at the same time at the same restaurant. She stopped by and snapped the photo for us. Jamie got a chance to visit with the Dennisons after dinner.

We ended the dinner with a yummy birthday cake. Happy birthday Annie!

A few photos

December 28th at Dwight's house

A small impromptu birthday celebration for Dean

Visiting with John and Monika via the internet and web cameras

We all got a chance to chat with John.

Family gathering

Sydney has a camera. I think she got it for Christmas.
She took the most pictures by far of anyone tonight as we met at Dwight's house. They were very good too. Maybe she will share them?....

I wanted to visit more than snap photos so I don't have much to share.
It was a good visit too. Thanks family. You all are great.


By the way,
Happy 50th too little brother.
Margaret

HER - SHE

It turns out the kitten is not a HE...those were just fur tufts...

Hersey is a she. HER-SHE. They liked her so much at the vet today that I think I could have left her there and they would have arm-wrestled to see who would get to take her home. Good reports - healthy kitten with just the normal issues. Estimated to be about 12 weeks old. That means she showed up at my house when she was only 3-4 weeks old.

Thankful Family

OK, these are not in the exact order that I expected. But, wellfed restful naps are characteristic of a blessed Thanksgiving.



We gathered the day after in our traditional break from Turkey and leftovers for a family pizza party. We had a pretty good turnout...Thanks for hosting Jay.

We missed Jamie, Mary, Dan, Kyle, Dean and family, and of course Johnika.






The venue provided plenty of entertainment in the form of pool, air hockey, movies, music, and plenty of corners and sofas for conversation or board games.



























Michelle with Grace and Sara.















Scott, Christine, and Robin














The youngest sib and the oldest cuz. The younger brother and older brother they never had. Eventually, they got the movie to play.


















Annie, Julie, and Jane. Anne shared stories of her adventures and challenges in her first teaching job in an urban school. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.












Ben has his own adventures. He is looking at an internship in Chicago this year. Sounds like a great opportunity.

















Sorry Dwight...
You were awake all evening.



I didn't get photos of everyone who attended. Others took photos that may be worth posting so stay tuned in case someone decides to put them up...

December blooms

I always get a nice flush of blooms in December.

I get plants I would consider sharing at my club meeting or a show. Of course, it's the holiday season so there are no regular meetings or shows. So I will share here. Please indulge me.


The tropical orange cattleya had no real name tag when I acquired it. It is labeled Bonsai Jim. I like the name and it suggests the history of the plant (it was probably a gift from Jim in the local Bonsai club). It will be more open in a day or two but the color was good and I had my camera out. The flowers are about 5-6" across.


The purple spray of orchids is an Epi Cat.
It is "Viola Susan" or something (another tag mishap). There are about 10 blossoms on this single inflorescence. There is another inflorescence coming on with another 8 blossoms or so.

















This is the one that prompted me to post. Last year, it was a very short yellow spray of flowers. This year, it bloomed orange on a longer inflorescence. I thought the buds were "blasting" (dying on the stem) because of the darker color and I only realized this weekend that it is happy and going gangbusters. The flowers are tiny. What you see here are maybe 30 blossoms on a 4" stem. The individual blossoms are about the size of a pencil eraser (maybe smaller). Pretty cool. Sorry, my camera doesn't get in closer than this. This one is a "species" and has a definate name: Liparis grossa.

Orchids are fun and not that difficult to grow.

Hersey

Hersey is adapting well and generally is being a gentleman. His new favorite perch is next to the goldfish aquarium.


He's still a cute kitten...so the snaps are just for fun. Don't worry, it won't be long before he is just hairy, sleepy, and uninteresting.