Friday, January 2, 2009

Happy Holidays! Time for a December catch up…

Everyone here at the Chagnon household agrees we had a great Christmas this year! Here is a recap:

We welcomed a new car to the family this December, Greg’s Audi was driving us nuts in and out of the shop all the time, and the warranty was about to expire. So it was time for something new, I was not feeling another pre-owned Audi after all the trouble with the A4. Greg agreed and on Friday the 12th he calls me up and goes on and on about a BMW he test drove, I said it sounded good thinking we would talk about it more when he got home. Well later that afternoon I got a call “um who is our insurance agent?” … needless to say Greg went back and signed on the dotted line without me ever getting to look at this car! I still can’t believe we own a BWM, but I must admit for a 2 year old car, with 30K miles it looks brand spanking new, and since it is an automatic I can drive it! I must admit it is NICE to drive. Does this mean we are pricks now??

December 20th: Greg and I did a quick trip down to CT to surprise Greg’s good friend Chris who was celebrating his 30th birthday with family. We meet everyone at Whirly Ball. What is Whirly Ball you might ask… well it is a combination of Basketball, Lacrosse and bumper cars: (http://www.whirlyballeastcoast.com/content/view/13/26/). It is great fun. We learned that Chris and Val have finally (these two were engaged long before Greg and I) settled on a wedding date, October 24, 2009, right in CT! With yet another snow storm on its way we did not stay the night and had to head back home long before we wanted to, since we don’t get to see Chris and Val often.
Chris & Greg


December 21st: Chalifour Christmas, Location: Anderson’s House. This year my cousin Griffin got a Hess Truck from my Uncle Dave (his godfather). This would not seam unusual, Griffin gets the Hess truck every year from U. Dave, except that every year before this on U. Dave tries to trick Griffin into thinking he is not going to get the Hess truck with a booby gift. To watch Griffin open the box and see that tuck, no trick, was priceless because what happened after that was like philological war fair. I think he was expecting the truck to explode or something.
It was almost all of us could make it with the snow storm raging outside. AJ stayed in ME, and Dad was plowing to make a few extra buckaroos and we missed them. Especial since that meant Auntie Nancy was “Santa”. You just have to know my family to understand! J Sorry I forgot my camera – no photos of this event. Only Marilyn took photos with her 35MM (why won’t she make the switch) so unlikely I will ever see any of them.

Christmas Eve: The Chalifour crew gathered up at Mom and Dad and then headed out for a night of family and friends. First stop Dave & Kim Chalifour’s open house. Congrads got out to cousin Courtney who hear back from one of the schools (still waiting to hear back from 1st and 2nd choice schools)she applied to and got in! Here are some photos:

Courtney & AJ

Andy, Adam & Moe

Me & CourtneyMe & Ashely

Second stop Dave & Jan Reynolds: More drinking and food was consumed! I even left my purse there and had to go retrieve it in the morning since it had my phone and camera in it!

Christmas Day! My father-in-law Jim (with Shadow of course) came up and joined the Chalifour crew at 17 Morningside Drive for food, present and fun. Jim and Mom& Dad got a digital photo frame from us. I preloaded about 50 photos on the frame to get them started, they all loved the gift! Mom made gifts for the kitties! Everyone got lots of great gift, and Jim got to be amazed at my Mom’s love of wrapping, and since there are so many of us it still takes 2 hours to open all the gifts!
Dad cooked a roast that came out soooooo good! Greg and Jim are still talking about it!
Chalifour Tree
Gifts for the kittes made by Mom!

December 26th: Chagnon Christmas! Off to CT we went to meet back up at Dad Chagnon’s homestead with Marci and Nick. Marci cooked chicken & eggplant parm., and we got to open more presents! Nick and Greg finally knocked the loose branch in the tree in the back yard that had been eluding their capture since Thanksgiving! All in all a great day!
Chagnon Tree
Shadow
Greg and Nick win!

Decmber 27th: Reynolds Christams! This year Jeff and Paula hosted in their new home, since it is HUGE and can hold all of us very easily! The finished basement keep all the kids happy paying Wii and running around. The adults were upstairs all drinking lots of wine (that is what Reynolds do we had to do a wine run when it started to get low). Everyone was having such a great time this party was an all day ragger! Greg and I got the worst # in the Yankee swap and wound up with a Dr. Scholls foot massager, bummer! My cousin Jen stole the supper cute starfish candle holder that would have gone perfect in my starfish bathroom at home…gurrrr! She better watch out next year. Again forgot my camera so I don’t have any photos L

New Year Eve: We went to our friends Nicole and Phil’s house. It was a small party full couples that either had very young children or were pregnant so we all ate lots of food, played Rock Bank on the Wii (some people really should not be allowed to sing!) and went home before midnight! Fine by me I was pooped, it had snowed again and was supper cold. I was happy to ring in the New Year in my pjs and kiss and then some well needed sleep!

Hope you all had a great Holiday Season! Much Love and Best Wishes for a great 2009!