Just as I had expected, my laptop failed shortly after my last post earlier this week. What I had not anticipated was the emotional toll that its loss would take on me. I found myself in tears when I realized that it was gone. In my defense, however, I had just returned from seeing The Book Thief and was already feeling sad. I knew that the computer would fail, but I just didn't expect it to happen so soon! Luckily, I had heeded the "Failure is Imminent" warnings that had begun making an appearance about two weeks before the "imminent" became a reality; all data had been backed up to an external hard drive before it was lost in the crash.
As difficult as it initially was to see my laptop go, I am now almost glad that it happened and that it happened when it did. Yesterday, I replaced the behemoth of a laptop that I had called mine for several years with a smaller, lighter, thinner notebook that will be easier to carry and use. And with a touch screen, the notebook functions like a tablet in many ways. I have been happily playing with my new "toy" since I brought it home last night. It is fortunate that my old laptop crashed when it did so that I could replace it while in the States; I don't even want to imagine how difficult (and expensive!) it would be to shop for a new laptop in The Netherlands!
And so, it is from my new laptop that I bring you pictures from the first of several holiday gatherings. On Sunday, December 22nd, we celebrated Christmas with the Auerbach family. Snow had spoiled our plans to see Santa in Cedarburg prior to our gathering, but it didn't stop us from making the trip to and enjoying ourselves at Mimi and Papa's house! The afternoon proved to be a perfect start to a week filled with holiday fun and festivities!
 |
| It didn't take the twins long to find the toys at Mimi and Papa's house! Will was happy to discover a bin filled with cars, trucks, vans, and buses. |
 |
| My handsome boy |
 |
| These two pictures were the best that I could get of Miss Maddie. Luckily, I got a couple nice pictures of her in front of our tree on Christmas Eve. |
 |
| We decided to play it safe with single shots of each grandchild this year; the group shot just wasn't going to happen. |
 |
| Will is just like a dog - he will do anything for treats. He was very cooperative once we pulled out the yogurt melts. |
 |
| He may have a mouth filled with melts right now, but at least he's smiling! |
 |
| Emma is also a big fan of the melts! |
 |
| Connor and Emma |
 |
| I discovered that the surest way of getting a 4 year old to smile is to shout out words like "underwear" and "toilet"! Hilarious! |
 |
| The kiddos were spoiled with Christmas cookies and ice cream after their dinner. |
 |
| Someone liked her ice cream! |
0 comments:
Post a Comment