Holiday 2008

January 9th, 2009, by Shelley Riutta

I hope you had a wonderful Holiday. Here are some pics from mine.

This year we added the pets of the family in the gift exchange. Here is Mandy–my Dad and Step-Mom’s dog waiting for her new squeeker toy she got. We spent half of the time focused on their gift openings! That is what happens with a group of animal lovers:)

Here is Bogie the cat enjoying his new cat carrier. Bogie was a stray that came to my Dad and Step-Mom’s door over a year ago. Everyone LOVES Bogie.

Here is my Step-Brother Ryan, my sisters friend Kyle, my sister-in law, Kathy and niece, Natalie preparing mentally for the next game of Bingo:) My brother, Barry, is in the background coaching from the sidelines.

I had been coveting my sisters Holiday Penguin that she won in an earlier round of Bingo —but then I won my very own Holiday Snowperson that had a light inside that would flash on and off. It will be a treasured prize for years to come:)

The most competitive game of the Holiday for our family is the DVD exchange which we do like a white elephant exchange. You roll dice and if you get doubles you can exhange DVD’s with someone to get the one you want. You can see the look of concentration and focus on my niece and sisters face.

Nessa (in the gray) is excited because she has the DVD that she wanted but…….the game is not over yet

In the last minutes of the game Nessa loses the DVD she wanted and got back the DVD she was trying to get rid of–”My Dog Flanders” a slow moving older film that I had unloaded in last years DVD exchange! She is crying out in pure frustration—it was so funny.

Here we are doing the annual sledding at a new hill. Here is my sister, sister-in-law, step-mom and Kyle planning their strategy for the hill. We went sledding after we went to see “Marley and Me” (surprise we went to that film:)–if you go–make sure you bring tissues).

Here is a picture of the hill they were going down. They stopped going down the hill which was to the right and began going down the service road to the left that was much faster.

My sister and her hubby. Aren’t they cute!