Part II: Myers Christmas Memories

Fun At Christmas!

(..and no, we didnt make these, but it looked festive & fun so...)

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What fun it is to decorate a tree as a child! :-)

 Baking Christmas tree cookies & blue of course, as it's his favorite color!

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Sunday night, after getting some much needed rest from our Red Eye flight, we decided to dive in on all the packages that we had sent home to wrap! Why not have a little fun while doing so?! :-)

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Prior to opening gifts, we had what was to be our Christmas dinner! Ashley suggested and made Ribs, Sweet potato Casserole, Green bean Casserole, tossed salad etc. with mom's help! We had a ton of other party snack foods too! We went to open gifts with full bellies ;-)

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One of those bitter holiday moments we had to deal with this year.. 

"No longer in my life, but forever in my heart."

Matty had to show us his Motorized fire truck he got for Christmas! The excitement in his voice as he would talk about it, along with the water hose that had been removed for the time being. :-) He was bombing around the property like nothing... What a kid!

...and then the battery died in the back of Nana & Pop pop's yard! Daddy had to help push him in for a charge! He still acted like he was driving..

Nana & Pop Pop bought him a bike with training wheels.. He struggled a bit trying to ride it and not use to the brakes! He thought the pedals should go backwards and forwards without any problems! Of course he then had to pose with Pop Pop's "glasses" with facial attachments! I think he looks quite cute, if I say so myself! Love this boy!

The day before we left, Mom treated us all to Tops Diner! We started passing around the cell phones for snap shots, but as you can see.. I don't have everyone yet! 

( Insert Pic of Ange & Steve here )

It was delicious & had an enjoyable time together!

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Saturday morning, prior to heading to the airport, we had Sausage gravy and biscuits over at Ashley's with fruit! Thanks so much, Ash! 

It was sad that our time was coming to an end for our NY trip, but it was a good time! 

I just had hoped I was feeling better throughout it all! 

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Part III to be continued..

 I need more of the shots that were taken in Massena for the next post...

Let's see what I can get my hands on.. ;-)

Part I : The Start of Some Christmas...

These posts will be in phases & likely will be added to, even after posting, of shots when I can get my hands on them :-)

Part 1

Our Christmas trip home was a bit different this year! Instead of going to my family's' first, we met up to celebrate after New Years due to some scheduling conflicts. This allowed us to spend Christmas Day here in CA together, prior to heading east! Normally, for the holidays - any holiday that we spend here, I will without a doubt attempt at a full holiday meal for the 2 of us, if we arent going to the relatives!! It's hard to not be home with family and sit in front a nice, home cooked meal, so we've learned to create our own memories! We would go all out with different dishes that we both have enjoyed growing up, having a TON of variety to choose from, and then enjoy some of the leftovers, well the leftovers that would even be good as leftovers! :-) ;-)

This year, I didn't think it would be best to make a meal with tons of leftovers, and then have them go to waste due to leaving the following night! We decided to go out for our meal and not have to deal with the cleanup! We had different places in mind to check on for holiday hours! (We actually had planned on making phone calls before the day of, but time got away from us!)  To our surprise, our choice of places were either closed for the holiday or had recently permanently closed! We made several phone calls at attempting others with little luck.. I was a bit sad at this point. We finally found Sizzlers to be open and decided this would be where we celebrated :-)

The place was actually quite packed by the time we left, with this being one of the few places open!

Everyone seemed to have the same idea!

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We came home to do some gift exchanging...:-) 

(Insert photo of us together by the tree when available)

After we finished giving each other our gifts, I wanted to try to get most of the gifts we had to go home wrapped and under the tree. We had so many gifts that were just mailed to NY, so the photo is not nearly complete, but works for me :-)

All the ribbon I didn't curl until arriving home not knowing what condition they would even be in... :-)

Saturday night, we headed East, but had to grab some....

... in the airport before leaving! We actually ordered to go and ate it on the plane! Ahhhhh! 

Do I make any of you jealous of this place?! Nett?

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(I Think...) We had a layover in Dullas, and was amazed at all their Christmas decorations that were on every corner and all over the ceiling! In fear of people thinking I was capturing shots of them, I tried to grab a few quickly, but these don't do justice! They literally were ALL over! We even tried counting the decorated trees, and lost count pretty quickly. Some of them looked quite played with, etc. It's amazing they looked as good as they did for the amount of people that pass through.

I believe the decorations were still up when passing on our way back home, Jan 9th! I was quite amazed at that! 

Good intentions..

So often I get excited at the idea of sitting down to blog and all the catching up I would get done and then it just doesn't happen!  I feel that I get farther and farther behind and then wonder if I should even blog about those moments. Yea, that doesn't help!

In anticipation of the Gaither Homecoming concert out here (for last Sept?), I was looking forward to capturing just the right shots, the angles, the different combination of groups that would be in attendance, having the decent seats we bought tickets for to work off of, etc! When that night actually came, I realized real quick that I would not capture all that I dreamed. I hadn't brought my camera along, and just had my cell phone to work off of. One also hopes that you would have "shorter/ or smaller built" people in front of you to help matters. Well, that wasn't working in my favor either! I attempted several times at shots, at focusing with with lighting, and nearly all of them were bad. :-( I finally decided I would stop attempting, as Im sure the people behind me could see the "type" of shots I was capturing...and was embarrassed at that thought. 

Anyways, just for the sake of it..I'm posting a few shots just to mark the moment:-) A Moment and memory I was excited to be a part of!

The last time I had been to a Gaither Homecoming concert I believe was with Tim and the family about a month into officially dating in 2001! Syracuse or Rochester?! I'm not even sure now.. so, it was nice to go again together!

 :-)