The Mercy of Friends and Happy Memories {+ Edit}

We made it back! My goodness, we've been home a week now! After 14 hours of driving, it's always enough to just unload our Clampett-style overloaded Suburban.

Many hands do make light labor (and, conversely, many hands also make many messes), and with everyone pitching in, we managed to unpack, sort all the Christmas loot from Back Home, undecorate the house, pack all that away, AND do a necessary regular tidying after all that - by Sunday night. Whew. And sigh. I'm glad for the fresh start of a new year.

But, first, a quick look back at a favorite memory from Christmas 2012: dinner and carols with Mrs. M's family, including her parents, in from Virginia....

Even though Mrs. M and I have been friends for almost 5 years, I'd never had the treat of hearing her play the piano! CA was obviously mesmerized.

MK getting a few piano basics...

Carol of the Bells is a family favorite at our house. This arrangement was really pretty...

CA just made herself at home on the piano bench. At one point, she asked Mrs. M to slide over so she could have more room to "play."

My very favorite memory from this part of the evening: CA climbed on Mrs. M's lap and wanted to sing (by herself!) God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. So, she launched into her semi-shouting rendition of the song, slowed down only by the need to, ahem, investigate the inside of her nose. She belted out a few lines, with her own unique time and meter, with Mrs. M trying to keep up on the piano, arms around CA. Then, CA misprounounced something in the song (I think she said power too quickly for her own taste...should've been pow-ah.) This necessitated starting over, which singer and accompanist did, and this time, CA sang the whole first verse with no trouble or interruption - except for the long, giant yawn that punctuated the first half, while Mrs. M waited to play the next note. Oh, it was so, so funny and sweet. We got a couple of videos, thankfully!

As is always the case when all eight of us are involved in something, there's at least a little (or maybe a lot) of chaos. CJ added her own improv to the carols...

 

It took two shots, but here are all of us, except our photographer, of course...and oh, wait, I don't see CA...she was probably getting underfoot as BB tried to take pictures!

I'm thanking God for the blessing of such precious friendships and happy memories. Also, Thank you to Mrs. M for having us!

And a good time was had by all....