Christmas; Episode 2

Mom had too work so she had to stay behind in Paris. You could be sure that there would have been pictures of me walking up to my family when I arrived at the airport, getting my luggage off the carousel, loading up in the truck, going to Ikea*, getting lunch at Chipotle, and us in the truck on the way to Paris if my mother had come. She likes taking LOTS of pictures. I must admit this gets old very quickly - not necessarily all the pictures, but that she tries to get you to pose the picture, and if she misses you doing something she wants a picture of ....
...she has you do it again. This is Scott and my second hug (I'm laughing that Mom made us do it again for a picture)


I must say that as much flack as my mother gets about the pictures, it is nice to reminisce over all the pictures AND when she poses you in a picture, the pictures generally looks a lot better than if she didn't pose you. So thanks, Mom. Thanks for putting up with all the hassle and taking the photos.

The Gilbert's (that's my family) have a Christmas Eve tradition to drive around and look at Christmas lights and then come home and open one gift before we go to bed. This year we opened a gift before looking at lights. The gifts we opened doubled as our dinner that evening - MREs* from my grandfather** It was a fun gift and an interesting meal - not bad, but I'm not dying for my next one.

(Clockwise from top left) Me opening up my MRE - sloppy Joes; Madi fascinated with the MRE experience (Scott in the background); Karen, Scott, Madi and Cheryl inspecting what's in the MRE packets; Dad with his spag bol; Scott, Madi & Cheryl; Cheryl heating up her MRE

Notice Cheryl's overly cheesy smiles in the pictures above? I mentioned that my mother likes taking pictures. As Cheryl and Scott are around Mom more often than I am, it bothers them more than me. Last time I was around my family Cheryl and Scott had the habit of sticking their fingers in their noses - to mess up Mom's pictures. It appears Cheryl's moved on from "finger up her nose"look to "overly cheesey smile" look. Oh what fun :-)
After the MREs we went looking at lights. Cheryl was a good sport and got out in the cold at my request to take a picture.

Mom and Dad with Giant Santa; Cheryl and me, me with a giant wagon - everything's bigger and better in Texas!

*Meal Ready to Eat - a military food pack
**Mom's dad - he was a military man before retiring