Christmas Day

All the photos are here. They're worth almost 400,000 words! Griffen and Remy were off in Wisconsin visiting more of the family. We'll be having another gift exchange with them when they return. The kids organized a Secret Santa for that event weeks ago.

Techy note... I had my first smart card failure today after several decades of digital photography. I took about 550 pics during the day, reviewing now and then like normal to see what I got. When I moved the SD card from the camera to the card reader on the computer I got nada. Well, not entirely nada. I saw a folder structure of sorts with very jacked-up names. The hope came when File Manager/Properties showed that 8gb was "used" on the card. So $70 for software and a couple hours later I had my files back, all 550 photos. I happened to use EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. There's also RecoverIt from Wondershare, and probably plenty others. The two I saw work the same way in that you can get a free trial version of the software that gets you to see that the files are there (even thumbnails of the image), but you've got to pay up to actually recover the files. That's fair. Were photo files worth $70 to me? Damn Skippy they were!

Had there been a "Best Homemade Gift" contest,
Fina would have won hands down.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve. Lynn and Jamie ran up to Boulder to deliver a Christmas gift for Craig. We squeezed in breakfast at the Walnut Cafe. Then it was Christmas Eve at TimberCreek Church followed by dinner at Vaqueros then Open Me First!

Open Me First

Craig's condo.

At Walnut Cafe in Boulder.
Banana Chocolate Chip Waffle.

Our waiter at Vaqueros has
a special bond with
one of the foster twins,

Christmas Adam

It's Christmas Adam! You know, what comes before Christmas Eve? Christmas Adam! We just can't avoid thinking about a fantastic Christmas Adam Party we had in 2016. Blokus! Christmas shopping and wrapping! Sand Tarts!

AJ did the shopping and wrapping.

How's that for Christmas festive?!

Colorado Nutcracker

It was a big evening for Fina, Nana, and Papa. Dinner at Track Ten then the Colorado Nutcracker. We had "tower" seats which were directly over the orchestra. We could almost reach out and touch the curtain. Great seats, loved being so close to the stage AND watching every instrument in the orchestra throughout the show. We had dessert at Hurts Donuts on the way home!

Two Sazeracs and a Shirley Temple.

Fina knew many of the castmembers
from her days at Colorado Ballet Society.

Spiderman

Today's big adventure was a trip to the new BIG SCREEN at Icon Cinema to see the new Spiderman movie. It's a huge screen and theater space (all cushy, reclining seats), but we're a huge family, too, and we made a dent in the place. Jonnie has gotten quite proficient at Lego assembly; he did this project (below) entirely by himself. And at the bottom, check out the Christmas ornament the Flying Horse Foundation gave Jamie.

Spiderman on Icon Cinema's HUGE new screen.

And the Compound Makes 15 !

The Compound was at full strength today and at a record-high - 15 people. Sam completed the picture last night when he rolled in from Fort Riley. Besides lots of Christmas shopping, wrapping, etc. during the day, we started the evening with a "sleigh" ride behind two horses from the Flying Horse Ranch: Clyde and Clint (they're Percherons). Then dinner at the Club followed by a gingerbread house-building for some of the kids. At the bottom of the page is a thank-you gift Papa got from the San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum.

We all fit perfectly!

Two tables of 8.

Papa got this thank you gift from the folks at the San Luis
Obispo Railroad Museum today! It's a New York
Central (Railroad) Services oil can. The New York Central
eventually merged with my favorite railroad since childhood,
the "Pennsy", forming the Penn Central.
The spout is about 2' long.