Christmas Festivities

This year, my Grandma Shaeffer paid the way for my entire extended family (all 42 of us) to a Christmas Concert in Columbus. It was amazing, to say the least. This enormous church gives a beautiful gospel presentation and they always tie it in with a modern family dialog.

Here's my sister, Caralee - my Grandma Shaeffer (dad's mom) and me!


My little sister, Caralee and her hubby, David - married for 3 years, just bought a new home (huge!) in Huber Heights.






Dad, trying to hide from the camera. This is a special year for us all - last year, at this time, dad was deployed overseas for over 5 months, missing Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday's and his anniversary, so this year is going to be especially nice with him being home!






Mr. James - 2 years old. We almost had to pick his jaw up off of the floor after he saw that they used REAL LIFE camels (and super huge ones at that) in the Christmas Story.




After the program, my Grandma took us ALL out to dinner at the Der Dutchman, one of the most delicious restaurants around!
We had a really good time. In fact, when they had our tables ready, they announced "Shaeffer . . . party of 42, your table is now ready" . . and everyone in the restaurant started looking around for this army of Shaeffers!


This is my cousin, Sharon - she was actually in the beginning stages of labor (with her 5th baby), later the next day, she welcomed Ransom Isaiah to this world.







Grandma Shaeffer (Great Grandma, to most of us!)









My sister, Caralee - and my two beautiful cousins, Melanie (left), just graduated this year (and most say that she looks like me, even though her Mommy was adopted, so we get a kick out of that!) and, April (middle), away at college, I had the privilege of teaching her piano for a while.