Christmastime in Corpus

Most of the time, I end up rearranging all the photos I take over the course of a week in order to tell a story.

This week, however, I'm going with straight-up reverse chronological order because the last two photos I took were such winners.

The first, of course, was Calvin and Aivy with Grandpa and Grandma followed by the whole Whitworth family from Jerry and Diane down to Rick, Ryan, Kristi, and the two rugrats.

Here's the larger of the two rugrats with her friend, relative, and partner-in-crime, Kaydence.

Her uncle Ryan liked playing bubbles with Aivy.

Calvin was mesmerized by the soap bubbles from his perch.

He was equally transfixed by Ryan and Kristi's companion animal, Remi the Dog.

Since there were so many animals at my parents' house and our kids tend to wake at odd hours, we elected to stay at a hotel this year. This also meant that the kids got to go swimming-- a real treat for the big one here.

They also had a great time on Christmas morn'.

Calvin got a toupee.

And Aivy got a cookware set. Here she is making her specialty...applesauce.

Calvin got into a heated exchange with my father over the bailout of the big three automakers.

Here's Rick helping Aivy to open presents, Calvin is burrowing under the tree, my Dad and Mom were watching from the sidelines, and I was blowing up a penguin.

Here's a standard great photo of Calvin suitable for framing.

Likewise for Aivy. Here she is showing off one of her matryoshka dolls from Grandma.

And my brother Rick with Aivy at the Whitworth family Christmas Eve fete. A good time was had by all. The kids even learned how to play a song on the piano. "Chopsticks," of course.

And the last photo, and the only one not in reverse chronological order is Linh with her good friend Lisa. Lisa is shown here with her daughter Emily who is keeping an eye on Calvin and Aivy. We all had a great time with David, Lisa, and Emily after returning from Corpus.

Happy New Year, everyone!