So we survived Christmas. Hooray! Actually we did more than survive it. It was really good.

rosepurr had our separate Christmas on Christmas Eve, which I wrote about previously. Christmas morning we flew to Albany, New York. My dad picked us up and we drove the hour south to where I grew up. We went to my sister's house and dispensed gifts and filled up on cookies and ham. My nephew Owen got Rock Band from my dad so I lived out my guitar hero dreams while he pounded away on the drums. rosepurr was first my groupie, but then she joined the band and sang. Fortunately, it worked better for us than it did for Spinal Tap. :P

Friday morning, my friends Drew, audiogeek and his sister Lori joined us and Owen for a hike. The snow had been melting, but there was still plenty to make it feel like winter. rosepurr's giddiness over the frozen pond was infectious. After the hike, we went back to my sister's for pizza, drinks and games. That crowd doesn't need much to provoke silliness. It was a good time.

Saturday, rosepurr and I went shopping with my sister mrsbowlert and my niece Abby. We saw some cute stuff, but it was mostly a lot of window shopping. Then we stopped off at a pizza place for - you guessed wrong! - NOT more pizza, but soup and canoli. Mmmm, canoli. Then rosepurr and I visited with Drew, his wife Linda and their two ridiculously cute children. We got back to the house I grew up and stayed up til 2am talking to Dad. Which was wonderful, until 5am when we had to get up to catch our plane.

Planes departed and arrived with no delays (Thank God for Southwest!). Nasty bumpy turbulence coming down yesterday in Baltimore, but otherwise things went fine on the travel part.

This was probably the best Christmas I've had up that way in quite some time. The best part, though, was sharing it with rosepurr. It's good to have her spend more time with my family and friends and the area of the world that is such a part of me.