christmas day, mark and barb's

For many years now, we have spent Christmas Day with Mark and Barb and Jay's parents.   It's a very laid back good time, gifts for the children, lots to eat.   That's Barb there, quite the fabulous cook.   Besides the cooking, she's --well, I've told Mark best thing he ever did was marry her.

 The usual rowdies were there living it up.

This is their new puppy, very sweet.   They've had three golden retrievers over the years, Ashley, Rusty, and Angel, and all three died fairly young of cancer.   When it came time, they decided to not get a golden again, hoping for a different ending to the story.

This one is a greyhound, husky, lab mix.  I heard he has speed and a tail like a whip.

 Here's Jay's dad with his oldest grandchild.

This is an odd-ly un-Christmas story, but when John was ten, he asked me some straight questions about abortion.

And he knew his dad and I were probably too young to be married, which is true, but we thought we loved each other and wanted to make a home for our child, teenagers.

He listened to my very minimal (avoiding) answers and said, "You could have done that to me."

The hair all rose up on my neck.

I told him, yes that was true.

"Yeah, true, but Johann, your life was never on the line."   Never.

This is also why I'm pro-choice. (Government?  Not here, not in this.)

And nobody was more excited about his grandchild than that man in the blue sweater below.

 And here;s Jay's dad with his youngest grandchild.  She was born when I was 42 and we were candidates for all sorts of interventions and testing, and actually we had this discussion when I was pregnant at 37 with James.

If we had testing and the results were unfavorable, what would we do?

Nothing.

We were planning homebirths anyway, so it was easy to continue doing nothing, and yet I believe if a person believes she should do something, then do that.

These decisions are all in the heart.

And the results of nothing were this girl, so there's that:

Jenny did hair dos with Julia.  She loved it, didn't think she ever wanted to wash her hair. The girls told her they could teach her to use a curling iron if she wanted.

 Awww.

It was a beautiful, fun day.  Thanks Mark and Barb for hosting this party everyone so looks forward to.   love always, Val