Our Christmas Photo Shoot

Hot dog. I just beat the 'expert' level of Minesweeper :)


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Shortly after I was laid off I lamented to Lisa that it took place when it did. Had it happened in summer, I said, I'd have had the unique opportunity to interact with the kids all day.

Yeah. And then came the ENTIRE WEEK they were (inexplicably) off of school for Thanksgiving, and that statement came to be known for the utter cr** that it was :)

But, we did use that week to accomplish some things. With our finances curtailed we could not go 'all out' as we usually do on Christmas cards, much less get a professional portrait. Instead we dressed 'em up and headed down to Southridge Mall to take a picture with Santa.









We got there early - earlier than Santa actually.



Here's two shots I tried taking with our camera. Neither was adequate, and I was running out of room on the memory card or out of battery power (I forget which) and couldn't take another.





It didn't matter, really. The mall still made us buy a photo (although I talked them down to half-price) and it was quite good enough. We later scanned and made copies to distribute in our cards.



If you DIDN'T get one this year, please don't be angry or remove us from '09's list. With our finances we only managed to get 40 or so cards in the mail (as opposed to 70-80 normally) and even those were staggered over a few weeks time.

After the shot we went and let the kids play in the jungle gym area of the mall. While we were there we ran into Lisa's cousin Jodie and her son Jackson, and chatted awhile while the kids played.













In case you can't pick up on it, Smiley LOVED wearing a tie!