Merry Christmas!

Wow, I have a lot to catch up on! We've been traveling for the holidays and still have a few days before we get to go home. On December 23rd, we drove the 10 hours (500 miles) to Bubba and Pap's house outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Dominic was supposed to have school that day, but we took him out so that we could be in the 'Burgh before Christmas Eve, since that's when our big family gatherings happen. We left a foot of snow in MA to go to a rainy, dreary PA. No white Christmas for us this year, but that's okay. I'd rather be with family than snow!

First stop Christmas Eve is my Grandma Ruffo's house - my Dad's mom and the kids' Great Grandma. We eat a traditional Christmas meal consisting of several yummy foods that we only get once per year, including spaghetti with clams, fried smelts (little fishies!), beets & eggs, broccoli in red sauce, rolled pizzas, mushrooms & hot peppers, and other goodies. Francesca loved the smelts - I think she ate about 15 of them or more! After dinner we take the annual family pictures and then open presents. Here's the picture of our family with my Mom & Dad, my brother Michael, and my Grandma. She turned 81 a few days before Christmas.

After we leave Grandma Ruffo's house, we go to my Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Ralph's house where my Mom's whole side of the family gathers for barely controlled chaos. The crowd consists of my grandparents, our family, Aunt Lorraine & Uncle Ralph and their whole family - including Cameron & Kellie and the four girls plus Christopher and his girlfriend, Aunt Barbara & Uncle Todd, Aunt Marilyn & Uncle Rich with Matt & Dan, and I think that's everyone. It's quite a crowd and the kids have a blast! Dominic and Francesca love seeing their cousins, although every time Francesca was sitting with Aunt Lorraine, little Lindsay would run over looking concerned and crying out "My Grandma! My Grandma!" Francesca just gave her "the look" as if to say, "I don't know who you think you are, but this is MY Godmother." It was a riot!

We also take family pictures at their house so we have the whole family immortalized on film. Well, not on film - at least not with my camera. I guess we're immortalized in bits and bytes! Here's a picture of the four of us. (Uncle Ralph set up a "photo studio" in the basement with tarps. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the wrinkles looked awful and the lighting was bad!)

My camera becomes the group picture camera, so I set it up on the tripod, lined up the shot, got my remote control, and got into position. From there I can click as many pictures as I want either immediately or with a 2 second delay. It's so much nicer than pushing the shutter on the camera and scrambling into position before the picture takes! That little remote was definitely a great investment. So here is one of the group shots with everyone in it.

I have more to write about and more pictures to post, but we're leaving to go out to dinner in a few minutes. (We're at GG's house right now.) I'll try to catch up more soon!