Just got back from a wonderful weekend in Minneapolis, with the absolute delight of getting to see BOTH Dianna and my sweet brother, Lee.

A shot of the Science Museum Backyard . . .

And my favorite daughter:

Decisions, Decisions. . . What Should the Well-Dressed Lab Wear for Christmas!

Sometimes it's tough to choose just the right attire for special events. And SOME friends are pushy about their ideas. First, they tackle you. . . .

Cover you in slurpy kisses and chew on your ears. . . .

. . . insist they know just the right thing to wear. . . .

. . . . and sit on your head to be the hat.

Friends! What would life be without them?

Another Peek at the Relatives While We Were In Philly

If you ever need to rent a really cool brother for some kind of PR reasons, consider this one, the one who's giving me weird looks while I hug his shoulders.

. . . Or this one, although Maria has first dibs on him, of course. Be forewarned, my rates are high for their rental. . . .

Here, we likely have my brother corrupting my sweet husband, Doug, with something on his camera. Can't you just tell by the look on Robert's face?

All was not fun in Philly. . . . This city is downright evil when it comes to parking! My brother, Robert, got a $76 parking ticket. . . . AFTER having put money in the meter AND having a handicapped sticker in his window. Down the block, 4 cars down, was a sign that said "bus loading zone." But not next to where he parked, but apparently he was suppose to know. Here, Doug is frowning ferociously at the parking ticket we got. . . . $36 for being about 3 minutes over! And then there was the $26 fine my sister got because of the way tollway lanes were labelled, and they missed the window to get toll ticket, and had to pay for the entire length of the tollroad, when they got off 3 miles down the road!

Everything else about Philly sang "brotherly love," but definitely not their parking policies/transportation policies!

Distractible Huddle

First task each am on our Philly trip: gathering together and deciding what we want to do, eat, do and eat some more. Especially eat.

But look how well we stay focused!

And notice Lee playing a game of checkers. With himself. With scraps of paper.



And look how happy he is that he won!

More of the "Fam"

Even the "little folk" were mesmerized by the photo slideshow that John (next photo, David's brother) and Maria (David's mom) put together for David's graduation.

Mary Ann's Little Gang

Did you ever read the children's book, "When the Relatives Came"? I loved reading this book to my kids when they were little. It showed a picture of a car piled high with people and luggage flying everywhere, crossing the country, to go visit the relatives. For years,Doug and I used to take our children off to Chicago at Christmas, and stay with Mary Ann and Bill.

And then we started getting stuck in snowstorms, my kids grew up and couldn't be torn away from their peer groups/school/work, and we stopped visiting. The book showed a visit that seemed like an "invasion", generating chaos and exhaustion, but cherished. Mary Ann and Bill always made us feel cherished. . . and Mary Ann would promptly mail back to Grand Forks all the stuff that my kids would forget and leave at their house.

Now, Doug and I can visit them, without kids, and are discovering the delights of playing with little kids that aren't your own. Here's Andy demonstrating self-protection while sliding down the steps.



And here's Joy, turning into an incredibly gorgeous little beauty.

My sweet, sweet sister. (Sorry, Mary Ann, about the flash going off in your face.)

And this is Bill, who has mastered photo-bombing with aplomb!

And as an aside. I can't believe I finally figured this out! I've been grousing about how much better my photos look in Bridge, than when I post them. Finally, I realized that something I read in a book about CS3 is just not the truth! The book said that CS3 automatically converted to sRGB in the save for web process. IT DOES NOT!!! So at least one of my miseries re: color angst has been solved! Today's photos are the first in months and months that are correctly in sRGB instead of RGB.

The House that Out-Disneys Disney

When we traveled to the Chicago area, a couple of weeks ago, we stayed with my sister, Mary Ann. Staying with her is always such a treat. This is one fun-loving family! They remodeled their house, and made it look like. . . well. . . Disney World!



Couldn't you just live forever on the porch alone, with the ceiling fans, and surrounded by Bill's own carefully tended palm trees? These are palm trees in Chicago, mind you!



And part of the fun is little Mr. Andy. Here he challenged Doug to a cut-throat basketball game! Later, he demolished Doug in a game of Halo. Again, note the palm trees in the background.



We had time for a picnic, but no luck in tracking down a picnic table. Given the miles you could travel in ND without stumbling upon another human being, this always amazes me. So we had a car picnic.

How we packed all of this in one day is one of those life mysteries. This is the day of the graduation party at Maria's house as well. We drove to Chicago, spent the day, and drove the 12 hours back to Grand Forks on Monday. . . in time for work on Tuesday.





Bill couldn't resist "laying hands" on his son. Note how un-fazed Andy is. He's so used to his dad's shenanigans!



These kids are such sweet hearts! For awhile, I was walking along with Andy, who told me with such abundant, gushing, feeling, how much he loved his big sister and missed seeing her now that she's in middle school and he isn't!


And my delightful, charming, niece, Joyce, who has the ability to communicate the most detailed saga of the Halo history, and trying to do it in a way that her aunt (me) could make sense of this complicated soap opera of the video-gaming world.


Bobbi made a comment yesterday on my blogthat just really cracked me up!
She asked how my family would handle it if someone were to bring a Canon into the fold! And the truth is that my son, Brian, is considering a Canon as he tries to figure out what video-capable DSLR would suit his needs in his school program, starting in July. He has to have such a camera, and I am shocked at how much I prefer he get a Nikon! I'm sure either brand will end up working just fine. . . but I have a definite preference! There's something viral about Nikon going on in my swarm's midst!

It's All Mary Ann's Fault! Dueling Nikon D40s

Really, it's all Mary Ann's fault. She was the first one to bring the Nikon D40 into our lives. We suspected nothing at the time. But then, one by one, first me, then Robert, Rina and Laurie all fell under the spell. Only Lee and Ronnie have remained untainted. But there is no vaccine.

My Litter Mates

"Litter Mates" probably isn't the right word. "Kin?" "Siblings?" "Beloved Brothers & Sisters?" "Clan?"

Silly us. Look how we "lined up." We haven't been together since my mother's funeral in 2000, and this is only 6 of the 7 of us. Ronnie, our oldest brother, (our "captain"), couldnt' make it to this graduation party. So in our excitement, we didn't exactly compose ourselves into a nice group shot; we simply lined up in our well-understood youngest-to-oldest arrangement.

Incredibly, these same 6 people once piled into one wretched Chevy Impala, with our mother and father, and took The Vacation, the One Big Trip, from Chicago to a Wisconsin cabin, in the '60s. You haven't lived until you've sat for several hot, sticky, hours in the back seat of an Impala, in two layers, arguing over which child with diapers was most leak-proof and/or squirmy, and was going to be on YOUR lap for the duration.

Serious Nut Case

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that my dear, sweet, husband, Doug, is a serious Nut Case. While visiting my relatives in Chicago, Doug hopped on Bill's electric cart (he has 2 of them, for his parents), and zoomed down the middle of the street.

Oh, wait. Maybe not so nuts; it seemed I hopped on the blue one, and circled around the block, (with my camera in hand, of course.) And we played chicken in the middle of the street.

But it's really Bill that's a crazy guy. Because he set the whole scheme in motion, sending Doug off on the red one, and then TELLING me that Doug was on the cart, did I want the blue one? Whoever could resist that?

This is my brother-in-law, Bill. In the background, to the left, is my youngest sister, Laurie. Thank you, David, for graduating high school this year, and giving the older generation a chance to act up!

David, the Graduate, and Guy of the Hour

I was so blissed out last week by getting to see my relatives in the Chicago area! It's a 12 hour trek, so it doesn't happen very often, and these wonderful guys grew up and turned into wonderful men. Last time I saw them, they were little kids who liked yo-yos! (Maybe they still do, but now they are very interesting adults!)

David, the handsome guy on the right, just graduated from h.s. last week. Moments after this photo was taken, he put "bunny ears" on his big brother John, to the left.



Why, oh why, didn't I take even more photos! I tried to not just stick my camera in everyone's faces, but now I wish I had many, many more photographs. This is a photo of my nephew, John.




And this sweet, kind, funny, extremely intelligent guy is my older brother. Not older by much, I must tell you. He's not even a year older than me, and I like to bask in the glory of being the same age as him for 6 days, every year. Why this satisfies me so intensely, I have no idea! Just part of the pleasure of having siblings.



Another part of the pleasure of having siblings is when they marry wonderful people that I can count as many own. Maria is also brilliant, creative, talented and very nurturant. She made sure that all of us 7 siblings knew about the graduation party months in advance. It was inspired! It helped us organize our lives to have the rare opportunity to gather 6 of us all in one place. Sadly, my oldest brother couldn't make it. Maria saw to it that there was wonderful food to feed a swarm of people, and put together, with her son, John, a sweet, moving photo journey of their life with David.



More photos to come!