Christmas Crowd

It was as a glorious Christmas. Sara's family came to town to add some extra excitement.

Christmas Build Up

Guest began arriving early, so we had the Fritels and Bueckers here for a couple days. Museums, group dinners, and hanging out with the cousins. 

Tom and Grandpa check out engines at the Udvar-Hazy Space Museum

Doug found the break (with some help from St. Anthony)

Mexican Bingo was a hit - RJ won twice, Matthew won the big pot 

Julia, Luke, Mary get ready to make the house smell like burned plastic

Julia and RJ stuff stockings (Julia sewed them all)

Christmas Eve

The Martins arrived. We were warned not to go to the 4pm mass ... but we ignored that and sat in the lobby despite arriving 20 minutes early. We did get a front row seat when Fr. Guest placed Jesus in the manger.

Mass on Christmas Eve at St Luke. We took care of George.

Stone crabs - a Fritel tradition

Christmas Day

What a day. Started by opening presents. Then we headed to the Hilton for breakfast. After that we returned to our house for stockings and cousin-present opening. Aunt Debbie and Grandad joined us for the afternoon/evening. Excellent weather permitted a top-notch wiffle-ball game. After dinner, the world series of poker (no pictures) and phase 10 (no pictures) kept folks occupied.

Opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa

Sara got to open a perfectly wrapped triangular package

Doug and Julia in the Hilton after an excellent breakfast

Grandma organized color coded shirts for the family (Pink Bueckers, Navy Johnsons, Orange Fritels, Green Martins)

Weather in the 50s. Great whiffle-ball game (minus Jett's walk-off homer) and some golf.

Santa and the gang

No pictures of Christmas dinner, the world series of poker, or Phase 10.

After a big day, kids finally get to play with Gravitrax at 9pm (Nintendo Switch not opened yet)

CYO Basketball

Since RJ didn't have enough sports to play, he joined the St. Agnes CYO basketball team. Starting from zero, he is starting to become a decent player.

It's good to have a rain-or-shine basketball court down the street at his friend Bradley's house.

Prediction: ball falls short

Girls Weekend in NYC

Sara and Julia (and Courtney) took on NYC. The boys stayed home and played sports and cleaned up the yard ... and ate a lot of gluten and dairy.

Train ride with Sampson

First stop: skating at Bryant Park

Day 2: Rockettes at Radio City

Day 3: really, really good seat at the Nutcracker

So after all was said and done, Sara got to live her childhood dream with the help of Julia tagging along.

Wood Chipper Housing

The housing to the Briggs and Stratton 305cc engine fell apart. After the heroic effort associated with the rebuild in September (see https://dougsara.blogspot.com/2023/09/wood-chipper-repair.html), I was not about to give up on the chipper.

Old and new housing lined up side by side

The pull-starter was riveted to the old housing. So, I had to research how to remove rivets without any specific rivet tool. A 3/15" drill and a pair of vice-grips did the trick.

St Luke 5K

Sara and RJ ran in the St. Luke 5K that was postponed from a few months ago. 

Start of the 5K. RJ is just above the starter's elbow. Sara is wearing a Santa hat

RJ finishes ... time could have been better ... he had a pretty bad cough

Sara "not a runner" Johnson comes in at 38:21. The Santa hat probably added a few minutes.