Happy New Year!

The S family traveled to a local resort for a few days of family "bonding" in a 2-bedroom cabin. Caleb's first comment was, "Mom, this might be a problem. There is only one bathroom." Since the kid's pool time was counted as bath time by their lazy vacationing parents, that really was not a problem. We had a lot of fun... a lot of football watching, some picture taking, no video games, and no computer time which for me meant some time to read magazines. Our friends stayed in a cabin near us and Brynn had a blast with her buddy Allie and the boys enjoyed playing with Connor. Here are a few pictures of our activities (okay, more than a few, still excited about using the new camera though we used the old one for the pool pics.)

When we first got to the cabin, the boys' worst nightmares came true... due to high wind the cable was out which meant no football... it came back on after a while but in the meantime they huddle around Doug's Blackberry to find out scores. Also, that is not Nyah's toothbrush and she knows it. Brynn loved riding the horse!

After a day full of activities, most of the kids crashed early in the evening but not Brynn and Allie... I think they would have stayed up all night if the parents had not been ready for sleep. They entertained themselves for a while by taking pictures... Allie with her mom's cell phone and Brynn with our point-and-shoot camera. Here is Brynn's view on New Year's Eve...

We returned to "real life" today... home with the washing machine running and a limit on tv & video games. This is what Evan thought about the latter:

And here are Doug and Brynn catching up on their online business (Doug on Facebook and Brynn on Webkinz):

And here are Price and Nyah, friends again,

after she gave him a lovely bruise on his face by throwing a remote control in his direction the other day...

I am telling you all, even if you don't believe it, that there is a little devil under that sweet, often cheesy smile. Speaking of that cheesy smile, she gives it now every time she sees my camera out. So at the pool we all gave our best effort to make the "Nyah picture face" for Caleb...

There are more pictures (and stories) about Nyah on her blog... she has been home 4 months now!

We wish you all a joyous New Year. We hope that 2009 is full of blessings and happiness for each of you!