I Get A Failing Grade

Thanksgiving went well. It's now our second Thanksgiving here. Last year, we celebrated with several families, feasted on a big spread, and played board games happily until after our kids' bedtime. It was a lot of fun. Since then, these families we spent the holidays with returned to America either on furlough or permanently. We miss them.

This year, we spent Thanksgiving with a few other families that we don't know as well yet. We ate, chatted, and then went home in less than 3 hours. DB was past her bedtime and suffering so we went home.

What?! An epic F?

No, it's a camera. Below is a camera called Diana. Seriously. It's a Diana F+ toy camera, a remake of the 1960s original Diana camera. It's a toy camera because it's made of plastic. It's a medium format camera - in other words, it takes pictures on a big film. You've heard of the standard 35 mm camera? This is a 125 mm camera. In G's words, "It can do some really cool things." You can take as many pictures you want on a single frame, creating the double exposure effect. You can slide color filters on the flash to cast a color over the subject that you're shooting. One day, you will see some examples.

G got this for his birthday. Happy 34th, my man. Now I tease him, "Are you taking the other Diana out? Who's your favorite Diana? It'd better be me." It's really funny to share a name with a camera.

Well, our Christmas tree is up, as you can see in the background of the picture above. Last year, I was sick as a dog in my first trimester so I didn't enjoy the season as well as I could have. I even had an advent calendar up with an activity for each day that we didn't do last year. This time, I'm feeling great, Ava's a year older and Christmas is more fun with her. We're doing the activity of the first day of advent this afternoon.

I have no idea what our plans are for Christmas this year. Last year, I hosted several families and had a lot of fun. Like I said, pretty much all these families are gone. Don't feel sorry for us, we will be fine. Next year should be better when some of these families come back.

Adios.

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