Christmas Vacation Draws to an End

My extended Christmas break is drawing to an end.  I have to return to work in the morning.  The girls have been off from school for a few days longer than me but they too have to return to their routine in the morning as well.  It's been a pretty enjoyable and relaxing break this year.  We started out with the usual family get-togethers for Christmas, first with my side of the family on Christmas Even and then with Margarit's side on Christmas day.

I've spent some time in the darkroom working on all the prints that I need to have ready for all my upcoming gallery exhibitions in 2016 and 2017.  Most everything is printed now but there are two that I want to redo and see if I can improve upon.  I will retreat to the dark later tonight and give those one more shot.  I already spent some time cutting up all the glass and frame stock when I got together with my collaborator friend Rob, just before the break.

The hockey tournament was a lot of fun and helped me to shake off the flu bug that I had, and to skate off some of the pounds that I put on with all the eating and drinking over the break.  I managed to get out for a short drive a couple of times with my camera.  The weather has been pretty mild and in recent days we have had some nice sunny skies.  I will be posting a couple snapshots from those short drives over the next little while.

We are not big New Year's Eve fans and didn't really do much.  The girls and I walked over to our local community league on December 31 to watch the local fireworks display.  I think I was asleep before the clock struck midnight and the year rolled over.  The three girls were up until the wee hours watching all the celebrations on TV.  All the musical performances used to be really cool to me when I was younger, and now it is their turn.  Personally most of the music nowadays is just crap to me and I prefer to put some oldies on the stereo.

We got together with some friends on the evening of New Years Day and had a good visit and some snacks and listened to some oldies music... at least until the neighbors shut us down....

Margarit and I went over to the local ski hill yesterday with Anna and took a skiing lesson.  Anna took a lesson a couple weeks ago with her older sister and just went skiing.  This was the first time ever on skis for Margarit, and only my second time ever.  My first time was 20 years ago and I only slid down the bunny hill two or three times on that occasion.  This time we were at the hill for over five hours which included two hours of lessons, a lunch break, and some time to practice.  The other two girls didn't want to go so just the three of us spent the day at the hill.  It was a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll go again later this winter.