Happy New Year from the Ranch!

We arrived at Mark's parents' house a few days before New Years, and stayed until 2016 rolled in. For the younger members of the family there was a New Year's Eve party complete with hats, noise makers, games, and grape juice from a winery.  Their party started around 7:30 p.m. central time, and ended around midnight (4 time zones to our east).  I can't say that any of the adults at the ranch made it until the central time zone's magical midnight.

Again, we were blessed by getting to see all of Mark's siblings, and all but one of our nieces and nephews.  (That would be our nephew and his family that we visited in South Korea.)  We should have taken a group picture, as we had 42 people for lunch on New Year's Day!

The panhandle was forecast to get a blizzard, but we were relieved that the snow missed us this time.  So we had some time to play outside in the ranch jungle gym disguised as a bunch of hay bales.

There was also some indoor fun with games and cards.  We played some electronic dance games that were even more fun to watch than to play. No pictures to post because they were just a blur of motion.  But the song with Mark and his brothers dancing had to be a crowd favorite.

We were also entertained by the same flock of turkeys we saw on our visit at Thanksgiving.  The children (and adults) enjoyed watching these birds that are growing noticeably bigger.

We had a dozen children, so it seemed appropriate to sing the twelve days of Christmas.  This was the younger side of the line of singers . . .

while this is a view from some of the older group of our great nieces and nephews.

After raising two sons, Denisa is enjoying spending time with little girls.  She finds that they love to sit on laps and give lots of hugs.

She especially enjoyed that they also love to play piano duets! Megan brought her piano duet books, and she kept asking Denisa to play the piano with her over and over.  Everyone in the house knows that we played "Old Suzanna" at least 20 times.  This is such a switch from raising a son that Denisa had to beg to practice duets.

Mark's Mom was one of our favorite audience members as we played the piano.

Mark's Father was surprised with a new ranch sign made by our nephew Michael.

For some reason, Denisa seems to take the most pictures of the youngest family members, with an occasional adult in the photo. This would be the two youngest Engelman nieces, and their grandmother who graciously shares them with us.

We had a very happy New Year's, and this finished the third of our three family holiday gatherings.  After twelve days away from the motor home, it was time to make another very long drive back to our home parked in South Texas.  We drove around 42 hours and 2500 miles in the car to get to these three family events, so we were glad to get back home.  But we feel so blessed to get to spend the holiday with our families that we don't get to see often.  We wish all of them (and you) a very blessed and happy new year as well!