A Visit with the Family

Sorry about the lack of blog posts in the last week, but in part that is due to my being gone Friday-Sunday on a rare visit with some of my family. My parents came in from San Diego to attend my Boston-based aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary party, then went to Maine for a few days, then to Schenectady where my sister Sarah, her husband Rich, and their 20 year old daughters Addy and Brianna live (when Bri isn't off at college). Here's everyone gathered around the table one night when we went out to dinner.

I adore my family, and don't get to see them nearly as much as I'd like, so I took a few days and went up to Schenectady to hang out with them all. We had a pretty good time not doing much of anything (in part because of scheduling issues and in part because my poor parents caught a cold from someone at the party, and my mom felt crappy).

In news that will surprise...absolutely no one...the high point of the trip for me (besides being with the fam) was a trip to a huge Barnes & Nobles nearby. I love my local Indy book store, but being able to wander around a giant store filled with books was just heaven. I only got a little carried away...

(And the gift book I bought for Addy isn't even in the picture, since it stayed with her.) In my defense, the big grilling book was $12.99, down from $29 when you bought something else. Which I clearly did. And the Indie band book is for my friend Chris's son, and the Hello Kitty dress-up doll fridge magnet is for my wonderful editor Elysia, who loves Hello Kitty. So really, it is almost like I just bought three books :-) And two of them were research for the current Baba Yaga novel. Oh, nevermind. Where was I?

Right, family. My nieces are twins, but you would never guess it by looking at them or talking to them. They are as different as two sisters could be, although they are both beautiful and talented and amazing in their own ways.

That's Bri on the left and Addy on the right. Bri is studying Fashion Merchandizing at Marist College, and Addy is doing a culinary degree (oh, the things she can cook!). On the side, she creates incredibly complicated and detailed costumes for Cosplays based on Manga books (Japanese Anime). This is the one she wore to our last breakfast, because she was going to the Albany Comicon right afterwards.

See what I mean? How cool is that?

Here's one of my favorite pictures of the weekend--my gorgeous sister Sarah, me and Addy, camping it up in the Robin jacket she also made.

My family isn't perfect, but I love them all more than I can say. It was a real treat to be able to spend three days with them. Of course, now I have to play catch-up with everything else! I hope you had a weekend as good as mine was.