Christmas Gathering at the Stauffer's

On Sunday afternoon/evening 12/21/08, we went over to my Great Aunt Martha's house to see her son Phillip and his new wife Betsy and stepson Denali. They came all the way from New Mexico for a Christmas visit. We got to see a lot of other family too. Unfortunately, when we arrived, Great Great Uncle Leroy was being taken by ambulance because he was having some heart and breathing problems. We are keeping him and his wife, Jean in our prayers and hope you will too!

After things settled down, I had a lot of fun playing with Denali. He is 5 and very sweet. He was so happy to have a younger playmate show up. Aunt Martha has a lot of cool stuff at her house from her years with her late husband, Ken (we sure miss him!) in the Peace Corps and other overseas work. Here I am sitting atop a carved elephant from Africa. It was awfully nice of her to let us play on it:

Here's Denali making a funny face as he sits on the elephant:

Then I found a cool woven basket with a lid that is just begging to be worn as a hat:

Denali agreed:

We ran around the house sporting our "hat":



The it was time for a photo op in the chair we were having way too much fun in. What do you expect, it swivels AND rocks:



We ended the fun visit with some photo ops - first, Phillip and Betsy and Denali (by the way, they are expecting a little sister the end of June!):

Next, Phillip's sister Stephanie with her husband Kelly (If you haven't put the family puzzle together yet, Phillip and Stephanie are my Daddy's cousins):

Then Great Aunt Martha looking very festive and pretty:

And lastly, Daddy and I by the beautiful Christmas tree (Denali would like to be in the photo too!):
We are so glad to get to see so much family in one day. Here's hoping you are also getting together with family this Christmas season!