It's a Jolly Holiday

So, I had my whirlwind holiday with my family in Lake Tahoe. Overall, it was fun if overwhelming. My family is loud in a Big Fat Greek Wedding sort of way, without the lamb. I have five (count 'em) nephews between the ages of six and thirteen (well, nearly thirteen). They are actually hilarious and were very well behaved. We all got to see a bear getting into the dumpsters on the first night, which meant that the rest of the week the boys stood bear watch each night. We never saw the bear again but it was pretty exciting all the same.

I taught the nephews to play blackjack under the pretense of it being a "counting" game. The Kiwi feels that there are other more suitable counting games to teach young children, but then the Kiwi doesn't like to gamble. Anyway, the boys rocked at blackjack. The six year old is one of the faster ones to count up his cards. I also taught them to say "Winner, winner, chicken dinner" whenever they win a hand. We covered basic strategy and I felt enormous pride when I said "and why don't we take insurance?" and they all yelled "BECAUSE IT'S A SUCKER BET!!!".

So, I had a lot of bonding time with the nephews and a bit with my niece, who is also pregnant (she's nearly 24 and married). We saw some old family friends and I got to play golf with my brothers as well as go shopping and lunching with my sisters-in-law (two thirds of them anyway). All in all, a good trip. I was happy to get home though.

And now I'm heading to Auckland tomorrow to see the Kiwi, whom I haven't seen in nearly a month.

I'll post a link to a Flickr feed once I've got it set up - I have heaps of pics of my family and a lengthy photo expose on short sheeting a bed, which the boys apparently thought would be a good thing to capture with my camera.

There's the short and the long of it.