Thanksgiving 2011

I have to catch up with so many blog posts. Thanksgiving 2011 was another gorgeous, shirtsleeves day for the weather, and once again we were lucky enough to share it with our cousins. Above is my cousin J, who brought half the food and also had the brilliant idea of floating cranberries in the kids' sparkling cider glasses.
As usual, all the action was at the kids' table.


R's little cousin N, the bon vivant, makes a spirited toast to the assembled family. We asked the kids to go around the table and say what they are grateful for, and this is a picture of him raising his glass and saying, "I am grateful for all of YOU!"

Charlie celebrated in the backyard with his traditional Thanksgiving visitor, Jake the gentle Bernese Mountain Dog. After dinner, we walked down the trail to play basketball.


Little C had just slid into a bloody knee and was handling it better than most grownups would. It still makes me laugh how she looks like an angry Gypsy.
Thank God for the blessing of family, a long sunny November day to enjoy each other, and a table filled with beautiful, healthy food. And little girl cousins, born one day apart, whose pictures we have been snapping together since they were newborns.

Eggs Mimosa

I was so happy when I first saw my old favorite, deviled eggs, with a French name: Eggs Mimosa. I think eggs mimosa usually have the yolk grated over the top, like fragile yellow mimosa blossoms. We had a mimosa tree in the house I grew up in, but it was the pink-tipped variety. When we read Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, I pictured the blossoms of the Truffula Tree as the fluffy pink mimosa blossoms in our front yard.

We took this to a summer party last week. I put the eggs on lettuces from the garden, and sprinkled them with smoked paprika, capers, edible borage blossoms, herbs and and violas.

My Mom reminded me of how good and easy hardboiled eggs are when she and my Dad visited in May. I associate them with her 70th birthday family reunion, at a cabin at Vallecito in Durango. She made a batch and kept them in the fridge at the cabin, and we ate them all week. Such a smart little hit of portable protein.

I wish I were back at that cabin right now, with my whole family. I miss them. We took this picture of R and her little cousins as they got on the boat. It's still my favorite. R. is 4. She really does not want to go on the boat, and she hates how tight the life preserver is. Look at her worried face! But she is smiling, so that her daredevil cousins will think she's brave.

More Christmas 2010

Stomach flu on Christmas eve! It was so sad.

We let her stay downstairs with us. This is my nephew feeding tinsel to Charlie before we stopped him.

Santa is coming!! (My Dad, who actually owns his own Santa suit and does this every Christmas.)

He's here!

Trying to stand up without getting sick. She said, "If Santa touches my head, I know I will get all better." It worked--she got sick for the last time right before we took this picture.

R and her Granddad are on the same wavelength sometimes. This is in front of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. My Dad is so knowledgeable and widely curious. His historian's mind is constantly observing and sifting through and comparing. It must be a lot of fun to be him and live inside that mind. It's certainly fun to be around him. Going through a museum with him is quite an experience.

This is part of "La Jornada," a bronze installation in front of the museum that celebrates the early colonists.

Catching up on Christmas

My Mom telling her grandkids the story of the family crèche.
When she was a little girl in South Dakota, a wounded soldier recuperating from World War II gave her parents this crèche. He had carved it himself, in loving detail, for the Cathedral downtown. The church told him it was too small, so he gave it to my grandparents. It was always in our house growing up.

This is a good time to catch up on Christmas photos because techno-tragedy has struck at our house. Within one month, we lost a) our computer; b) my expensive Photoshop software; and now, as of Sunday, c) my expensive, ten year old camera. a) The motherboard fried in a power surge (I guess surge protector strips are not enough protection?); b) My ancient Photoshop is not compatible with Windows 7 on the new computer and it's too old to upgrade; And c) my camera has a lens retraction error, not usable and not fixable.

It was all very old and kind of strung up like a house of cards, but it took a long time to pay off in the first place, it worked really well and I was used to it. Pretty much the most valuable and most-used things we own next to the house and the car, maybe the stove, and then we lost them all within a month. We replaced the computer. A new camera will have to wait until we pay off the computer, and $700- $800 for Photoshop . . . who knows when or if ever I'll get that again.

So, no new blog photos for awhile. I know I'll figure out a way around this and it will be good to get out of my rut with my comfortable setup. I miss my camera like my right arm, though.

My dad reading with R.

R's cousin, my awesome little nephew and godson. They are both second graders. I wish they lived closer.

Granddad playing basketball with R, my godson and his equally awesome big brother.

Granddad helping R out of a tree. He calls her by my name sometimes and then quickly corrects himself, which I love. It's usually when he's doing something like this, that he probably hasn't done since he did it with me when I was a little girl.

And then it was over.

Let's see what else happened during our week of spring break. Here's another picture from our morning with my walking partner Julie's kids, who love poking sticks in the river as much as R. does.

Lunch and shopping in downtown Littleton, with D's mom and his brother and family. This is R's little cousin K.

That night we all had dinner at our house. The kids piled on Grandma, and Charlie loved it.

We went to the zoo with Julie's kids.

And look who ran into at the zoo! More cousins! That was such a nice surprise. It was spring break for all the Catholic schools.

And finally, a birthday party for a school friend. It was a dress-up tea party. The foot of snow from the day before is almost melted. It was so kind of D's mom to travel all the way here and spend the week with us. We had a great time. This afternoon I raked out the backyard garden beds and got them ready for peas and carrots and beets. Back to school tomorrow.

Mt. Olivet Cemetery

The morning after the family reunion party, my Dad and some of his family went to Mt. Olivet to visit the family graves.

R and her favorite cousin.


My great-grandparents on my Dad's side.

R and her cousin took off looking for Mary statues and hugging them. I didn't realize that my camera lens was streaked until later. I like it, it looks like a friendly spirit was there.

Trying out their new reading skills.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Mom. We wish we could be with you today.

Ireland, 1960s


With her brothers on the left, Sioux Falls, SD


With my brother Don, 1965.

Happy Easter

On our way to Mass.

Thank you Jenny and Steve, for hosting such a fun brunch and egg hunt.