I CHOOSE!

To accept!! Mama Kat, you have the best prompts...

I chose number 4-- the best picture I took last month and why it's my favorite.

Actually the story is sweeter than the picture, so the story comes first, then the pictures.
I flew home to my parent's house on the eve of Christmas eve. (which actually ended up being Christmas eve morning because of delays...) After sleeping in and spending a rainy day with Amy, it was time for festivities. I took a shower, looked nice (hello! pictures!) and went down to watch and help mom get ready for our epic dinner. Amy came over and we had cheese and crackers and chatted and drank champagne until dinner was finished. During our fabulous dinner we started talking about the one present as a kid we remember. I told my mom it was my Cabbage Patch Kid that I named Eve (because I got her on Christmas Eve). My mom said she had to get my aunt to buy one in California (where she lived at the time) and send it to Pennsylvania for me because she couldn't find one here.

My dad then told a story of something he got as a gift when he was 9. My Grandpa is an avid Yankees fan and so my dad is too (hey, no one's perfect), and growing up in southern PA it's not super hard to get to NY to see a game. Not hard, that is, unless you have 5 kids and are poor, just like my dad's family was growing up. Never the less, my Grandpa found a way to take my dad to a Yankee game at Yankee Stadium when he was 9 years old. When they were walking out of the stadium after the game my dad saw a shop where they were selling real Yankee baseball uniforms in kids sizes. My dad knew that they didn't have much money to splurg on something like that, but he asked my grandpa anyway if he would buy him that uniform... and my grandpa did buy it for him.

Sitting at the table I was touched. I have heard about how hard it was growing up with 5 kids with hardly any money, but they were ok, and always had a loving, caring home. When my dad stopped talking (teary eyed from the emotion/wine) my mom stated, "I have that upstairs in the closet, your mom gave it to me years ago!" My dad was on the verge of disbelief and anger. My mom swore up and down she had told him about it, but I side with my dad that says if he would have known, it wouldn't have been in a Wal-Mart bag in the back of her closet. I offered to clean up the whole dinner if she would go up and get it... which she did.

My picture is my dad with his Yankee uniform laying over him. They don't make things like that any more. The quality, the thickness of the wool... very old school. I don't know how much they paid for it and my dad doesn't either, all I know is that for my dad, and for me, now, it is priceless.