The cousins are here......
The school day will be appropriately adjusted.
Promised Karen the kids would go home knowing some Latin (Chuck has already jumped in with Sic semper tyrannis - does he have issues?), so maybe we'll do Jingle Bells and Adeste Fidelis.
Anne is happy to be reunited with Martha and Dave is having a blast running the Hot Wheels up and down my treadmill. If it would snow, we could take them to drive through the light show in Vernon Hills tonight. (Without snow it looks cheesy........actually it is cheesy, without snow it looks dumb.) So far the kids haven't noticed our lack of DVD or the fact that we watch TV on a 15" computer monitor........I'm certain one of their cousins will inform them of the near-Amish experience that their mother has sent them into.

I didn't get so see Karen, but this is the closest we've come to Christmas together in 16 years. She arrived after I was at work. Lost a little time on the trip and didn't have enough time left to swing by church to see me and get back up to Madison at a reasonable time. Opened our gifts. She liked the framed picture of Au Pied de Cochon that Rick found doing a Google image search and printed on photo printer paper. (He also made a copy of Brassai's Steps of Montmartre, which can be purchased at no small expense in the Signals catalogue. I framed it and put it in the dining room - the girls are pleased that I am trying to stay with the French 'theme') It would have been a better gift if accompanied by some onion soup bowls and a bottle of wine - you know, a theme gift. But time among many things) ran out......

I opened mine when I returned. She gave me a marvelous screen saver with 50 scenes of New Orleans......that will be fun to play with today. And a statue of St. Expedite........I'm so tickled. I asked for a holy card and she bought me a statue! (You just don't find St. Expedite in your average religious goods store in the Chicago area - for a variety of reasons!)