Christmas In Mobile

We left Shreveport around 8:30 and made it into Mobile about 3 pm.  And yes, that Prius really did have some giddy-up.  And the one thing everyone agreed on upon our arrival – my beard was totally awesome.  That meant a lot to me.  Some even said I looked like Sean Connery when he grew out his beard, or even the latest version of Joaquin Phoenix (check here).

Anyway, we had a nice gathering of Kanes and McCarrons there, even Mommaw made the trip over!  Here’s Michele with our (second?) cousin Jack.  I think Jack was showing her how to set up an Excel spreadsheet where the cells’ data would all be in sync with the click of a button…

And here I am with Lauren and Emily…

I got Michele an Alabama-themed Snuggie as one of her Christmas gifts.  But guessed who called first dibs…

We played a mean game of “Apples to Apples” on Friday, which was won barely by Michele.  Side note: this is a super fun game.

On Saturday night, we met up with a bunch of friends at Callahan’s.  It was packed out and we ended up hanging outside on the patio area.  What’s funny is that everyone was freezing out there – except us.  It was pretty comfortable by our standards.  Here’s Michele and Blakely…

And yes, even my dad made it out for a few hours.  Michele and I must be pretty big deals, if you know what I mean.  Here we are with him outside the bar…

And here’s my mom and Emily posing for a photo.  Believe it or not, my mom actually took Emily, James, Michele, and me to the Waffle House late night!

My mom took some more pictures while we are in town, so I may add a few more once she gets them uploaded.

Hope everyone has a great New Year’s Eve!!!

Christmas In Shreveport

Now for the real deal.  While I have to admit the iPhone takes pretty decent photos, we are still partial to the good ole camera.   We didn’t actually break out the camera until Christmas Eve, though.  We all gathered at Michele’s mom’s house for dinner and some gift exchanging.  Among the highlights, Jason made some chicken and sausage gumbo, and his self-proclaimed world famous potatoes au gratin (they were very tasty, though).

Michele handed out an early, pre-dinner gift to Jackson and Alex – a Rudolph reindeer nose.  It had a little button that would make the nose blink.  Here’s Alex trying his on…

But then he started really cracking us up once the nose started blinking.  He did not want to take the red nose off, but he also wanted to see the blinking in all its glory.  Below was his solution…

Here’s Michele’s dad holding Meagan and Denny’s new little lady – Eva…

Both before and after dinner, we were treated to some Christmas musical entertainment from Jackson and Alex.  Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and I Wish You a Merry Christmas.  And yes, the actual version was I Wish You a Merry Christmas…

And the singing…

Denny has out his trusty video camera, and Meagan is quite amused by the performance…

Jackson got a sleeping bag this time around.  However, this is Alex checking it out, with his camo cap on, just in case he needs one of his own for his birthday…

This is perhaps the craziest crazy straw we have ever seen.  You wear it as glasses, but it also dips in the drink and into your mouth.  It was tiring to get the drink from the cup to your lips, though.  And yes, if you have not already seen, that is my beautiful beard…

Here I am showing a video from our trip to Katmai to Jackson and Alex and Bill and Karen…

Here’s Michele and her mom in front of the Roll Tide Christmas tree.  They were trying to pose for a goofy photo, but I think this one actually turned out to be really good…

Here’s the conversation that led to this next photo –

Linda: What do I have to do to one day get a ride on the F/V Abundance?

Michele: Never going to happen.

Linda: There’s got to be something.

Me: Maybe if you stand in front of your tree and point to an Alabama ornament I can pull some strings.

And now we move on to Christmas morning.  Michele and I stayed with the Leggs on Christmas Eve, got up at 5:55 a.m. to watch Jackson open his gifts, then we bolted over to the Moton’s to see what Santa brought Alex.  Here’s Jackson with his crossbow.  Unfortunately, we did not get a picture of him with is Pocket Elf…

And here’s one from the Moton house.  Alex wanted a tractor and a boat.  Here he is with the boat…

And here’s Michele taking a turn holding Eva before we leave…

Then I squeezed in…

So that’s from the Shreveport run.  We left Shreveport around 8:30 and got to Mobile about 3 p.m.  I’ll give the lowdown on the second half of our excursion tomorrow.

Seattle Sunrise

I hope everyone enjoyed the iPhone blogging from our trip.  We had a great time, even though it was a lot of traveling.  It was great to see our families for Christmas, and a bunch of friends too.  I will get a longer post up a little later with some of the photos taken via camera on our trip.  But first off, here are some that I think turned out really well of Mt. Rainier.  We left Seattle pretty early last Wednesday, so the sun was just coming up while we were in the air.  If only you could roll down the windows on the plane, these would be even better…

The Fast and the Furious 4: Christmas in the South (vol 9)

We’ve almost made it home. Right now we are in the Dallas airport and will be getting back to Juneau Monday morning. The trip was tiring, but I think we both had a really fun time, and we loaded up on some gifts!

Yesterday was actually pretty relaxing. We ran a few errands in Mobile, Best Buy, Sears, and the shoe store. Last night we met up with a bunch of friends at Callahan’s – even my dad made it out.

I did remember to take a few photos. There’s Michele with Blakely and Tommy, my mom, and Emily and me…

The Fast and the Furious 4: Christmas in the South (vol 8)

We made it to Mobile around 3pm today. After we dropped off the car, my sister and her boyfriend gave us a ride to the house. We got to open all our presents, including a coffee maker for me and a Bama snuggie for Michele.

After dinner, our little cousins Jack and Joseph put on a show while everyone chilled in the living room.

Below are photos of Michele and my grandmother, my Aunt Debbie with Dante, and Lauren, Emily, and Billy.

The Fast and the Furious 4: Christmas in the South (vol 7)

We are on the road again! After spending Christmas morning with the Leggs and then the Motons, we moved on from Shreveport. Jackson was really excited about his four-wheeler and pocket elf, while Alex got the two things he wanted – a tractor and a little tug boat. Eva got a doll and a nice diaper bag (we’re guessing she makes more use of the diaper bag).

We picked our sweet rental car yesterday aftrnoon. All they had left was a Prius. That’s right, we’re going Hybrid and it’s freaking us out!

Photos of the sweet ride are below. Pics of Christmas morning will get downloaded in the next few days.

The Fast and the Furious 4: Christmas in the South (vol 6)

As you know, every great travel blog (or Fast and the Furious movie) has at least one pertinent flashback. Right?

Well that’s what you’re getting here. I took some photos on the plane yesterday of Mt Rainier during sunrise. Of course, I forgot to load them up after we landed. I also took some really cool ones with our actual camera, but those will have to wait until we get back to Juneau.

Here are a few of Mt Rainier thanks to the iPhone…

The Fast and the Furious 4: Christmas in the South (vol 5)

So I have been failing in my duties of keeping the travel blog coming every minute. To update, we had some terrible weather last night in Shreveport – hard rain, tornado warnings, wind.

Today has been much nicer out. We have been running some errands and are now at Michele’s mom’s house for some Christmas eve fun.

Below you can see Michele with some chicken, Jason and Jackson taking it easy, and Big Al leading the reindeer…

Fast and Furious 4 (part 4)

So, we’ve made it to the end of our first leg of flying. The first thing we noticed is that there is a lot less snow on the ground in Dallas than there was in Juneau. Michele even took off her scarf.

We are getting picked up here by Michele’s family, who are driving us to Shreveport. Here’s the scene in Big D…

Fast and Furious 4 (part 3)

We are on the plane in Seattle now, waiting to take off for Dallas. It’s about 7:15 Pacific time, so coffee is a must!

Time for a nap maybe.