Post Three - Family

We had a mini family reunion in Texas over the holidays where all the members of my mother's side of the family showed up. Pictured from left to right in the back row are: Katie, Connor, Colleen, Debra, Karl, Jeff, and Jerry. In the front row we have Phyllis, my mom Barb, me, Karen, Sarah, my grandmother Manny, Patti, and Kathy.

We had unusual weather in Dallas this past Christmas - snow. Normally it is cold but I don't think I had ever seen a white Christmas in Texas until this year. Unfortunately it screwed up the airports for a couple of days so various members of our family couldn't fly home for a while. I didn't mind - it meant we got to spend more time with them. This is a photo of me as the snow was coming down.

As a child, Karen was terrified of Santa and to this day avoids the Santas in the mall at Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with some of my father's relatives from Pittsburgh and in the middle of the evening Al disappeared and reappeared as Santa to hand out gifts. Everyone took turns sitting on Santa's lap including Karen. Hopefully this was a positive experience for her and she is now on the road to being able to cope with this deep-seated fear without the use of medication or therapists.

Pictured in this photo from left to right are: my father, my stepmother Kim, myself, and Karen.

Christmas at the Morgan household is about being treated like royalty as my aunt and uncle pull out all the stops to make you feel at home. Here, Phyllis enjoys her favorite day - Christmas morning - while Jerry makes sure she is in need of nothing.

This is a photo of my little sister, Debra, and her significant other, Karl. Karl is on the right.

In this photo, from left to right we have: Karl, Debra, Karen, me, my mother, and my cousin Phyllis at Snoopy's - a famous fish and chip place in Corpus Christi.

And so, in Corpus Christi, we end the first phase of our travels - the southwest by Vanagon. In the next post we move on to the next phase - Mexico by bus.