For a lot of people, the time between Christmas and New Year’s is a whirl of family activity; I often opt out of Christmas, it’s just too stressful, but this year I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin for the holiday.
Here I am in Madison with my nephews Damien and Sebastian. We’re on top of 18 inches of snow and are about to go sledding. Luckily Sebastian and I wear the same shoe size: I was able to borrow his snow boots!
After sledding, we returned home where we built snow forts; here’s Damian in the snow fort we built…
…and here is Sebastian with is friend Cedric in the snow fort they built. They completely demolished me and Damian within minutes, and had us fleeing into the house to escape their arsenal of snow balls.
My brother Frank lives in Madison, he dropped by with his fiancee Leah; here they are with my nephews, Kasia and Benson, the family dog:
After Christmas, I headed home to Tucson; Frank came out to visit and brought Leah, so she could meet my parents. My sister Roberta, her husband and 20 month old son came down from Portland; my brother John came in from Boston. We had dinner together at the Velvet Elvis in Patagonia, Arizona to celebrate Frank and Leah’s engagement. Too bad Sebastian, Damian and Kasia couldn’t be at dinner– here we all are:
Robert and Luke then came to spend a few nights with me; I made a roast chicken dinner and my brother Eric came over to join us:
Before sunset, Luke joined me and Bearbear for a walk down at the Rillito wash:
Here’s Luke in my back yard looking like quite the pugilist:
The best news is that even with all the chaos of family visiting–and with some of the visits being predictably unexpected!–I was STILL able to finish my art quilt and meet the deadline of January 3rd.
This is how it looked hanging on my living room wall shortly before I dropped it off:
You sure know how to pull the holidays off in style! Nice.