Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Our annual funny-face Olive Garden dinner

Tom's mother and brother finally arrived in Seattle from California after a weather-related travel nightmare that lasted days -- including, unfortunately, Christmas Eve in an airport hotel and Christmas day in an airport terminal.

We celebrated Christmas late, but as Tom reminded us, Christmas is a season, not necessarily a particular day. Since Nana and Craig come to visit every year at this time, we've developed a few traditions, among them our annual family dinner at Olive Garden. (Another is our annual Sauerbraten dinner -- which will be on New Years Day this year, but which we're already beginning to cook tonight. Stand by!)

Of course I was snapping photos throughout the evening and when I reviewed them I thought, 'Dang, none of these turned out very well.'

But attitude is everything, right?

The pictures themselves might not be anything special -- but they're special in their, uh-hum... "specialness."

Here's a rare photo: Elisabeth and Aleks together. Until recently, they really weren't all that close. But in the last year or so, they've become really good friends.

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This is Peter and his Uncle Craig, Tom's brother. Craig looks like his normal, pleasant self, but Peter... Geeeeze! Like a lot of guys, Peter just freezes when you point a camera at him and ask him to smile. Actually, he doesn't simply freeze; he goes oddly in the opposite direction and gets a look on his face that makes you wonder if you should call the authorities!

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Just for balance, and to show you that Peter is anything but weird or scary, here's a picture taken of him earlier in the day when he went skiing at Mt. Baker:

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See? Totally harmless!

Still not convinced? OK, fine!

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I told you. Perfectly angelic. Be still, my maternal heart!

OK, so what's the next picture in the batch? I really have no idea. Well, lookie here!IMG_0625

No comment. (Is he holding his fork like a pitch fork, or is that just my imagination?!)

Elisabeth is Nana's first grandchild and the two of them have a special relationship. Nana has lots interesting stories to tell about her past. I'm trying to convince her to start a blog, but alas...! (Not really.)

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Then Tom took the camera, stood up and pointed it down at me as I sipped my wine. If I were 25 years younger, I'd make this my Facebook profile shot simply because of the weird angle (because you know, all cool Facebook profile photos are shot from weird angles):

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Then we handed the camera to the waitress and she took this shot of all of us, to document our 2008 Annual Olive Garden Post-Christmas Family Dinner. A good time was most definitely had by all us funny-faces! IMG_0627adjust

Our next annual tradition will be our Family Sauerbraten Dinner on New Years Day. I'm positively salivating already!

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4 comments:

Maria said...

If I leave now, I could make it by New Year's Day! :)

Carol said...

Well get going then, Maria, because we'd love to have you! :-)

Carol

Jen said...

You're making me salivate, just remembering LAST year's post! I can't get over how much Craig looks (to me) like Tom.

Goofball said...

oh my gosh, Peter surely can make freaky faces on pictures!

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