CELEBRATE!

Happy Holidays!! I am still riding the "high" that Christmas brings! I gotta say, this was one of the best Christmas' I have had in a long time! All 7 of us, mom, Nic and Troy, Aim and Shane and Marty and I were together for 5 days over Christmas.  The 6 of us and three dogs walked into mom's house and it instantly felt like Christmas! Everything was decorated, the tree was up, there was food galore and big hugs all around.  There was nothing but happy memory making from the minute we walked in the front door until the minute we stepped out to head back home!  

This Christmas was extra special,we got to celebrate a lot! Christmas morning came, we clebrated! News came that my cousin had her baby, we celebrated.  Nic and Troy were preparing to leave on a journey of a lifetime, for them, we celebrated.  Mom, Nic and Shane all have birthdays in January so, since we were all together, we celebrated and.....Aimee and Shane got engaged so we were lucky to be able to celebrate that too!  It was weird how all of the things we celebrated brought both smiles and tears to the party.  Christmas morning always first brings smiles, but tears soon fell when us three girls opened a special gift from mom. She had made a book for each of us with photos of all of Dad's race T-Shirts and his other favorite shirts. Outsiders may not understand, without seeing the book, how something like that could make all three of us cry, but just seeing the T-shirts brought back so many happy memories.  The tears were right from our hearts, not tears of sadness, tears of happy times remembered.  

News of my cousin's baby brought mostly smiles, but some small tears over the fact that we couldn't be there to help welcome the new miracle into the world.

Nic and Troy having the opportunity to travel and volunteer and explore the world is exciting but tears came when we realized these were the last few days we'd be seeing them for a WHOLE YEAR!!!!  

The birthdays brought mostly laughter and smiles, but since the celebration involved a trip to a comedy club, there were tears of laughter streaking down most of our faces at some point or another.

The engagement was incredible.  It happened right there in front of the Christmas Tree and our whole family right after gift opening Christmas morning!  As soon as we saw the box, we started crying from sheer emotion over what was about to happen!   Laughter and smiles soon followed as we realized how lucky we were to be chosen to witness the event!

Yep, this was a Christmas of celebrating as a family and it will be one we we remember for a long time.  We laughed, we cried, we loved and we celebrated all together!  

Happy Holidays!