The De Falco Family: A New Year and Holiday Recap

Happy 2022, everyone! So maybe it's not the start of the new year that we'd all hoped for, but it is what it is. I'm definitely trying to remain optimistic.

Our holiday season felt relatively normal this year. Bicycle Santa (a.k.a. our neighbor Mr. Kevin) made his rounds on his red bike. He and his Santa buddies ride all over downtown Cincinnati every year!

Brie's choir had their holiday concert...it was beautiful!! (That's Brie front and center in the plaid.)

The 6th grade band also had their first concert and the school live streamed it for the grandparents, which was awesome!

I did a little holiday baking, of course! Definitely one of my favorite parts of the holiday season.

Speaking of cookies, our neighbor Dave baked a dozen kinds and gave us a big container to enjoy on our car ride to Virginia. Lucky us!

Our first stop was Nonno and Nonna's house in NoVa...our first visit there since December 2019 (though it feels like longer than that). The big kids played all the holiday songs they know while Nonno played Bas in Scopa.

Tony and I met up with our friends Courtney and Jay (who, of course, we hadn't seen in 2 years) and we all took the dogs for a long walk. Their two are sweet as sugar...Blossom loved them!

Snuggles!

A very Merry Christmas with Lucas, Lily and Nathan! 🧡💚

Samuel loves red buffalo plaid and his reaction to getting socks with that pattern cracked me up!

Holiday lunch!!

A family pic!

The next day, Nonno and Nonna took us to the brand-new Italian American museum in D.C. that they helped to create! Naturally, they were excellent docents!

The museum is a wonderful tribute to the Italian immigrants who helped to build D.C. and history of the many Italian-Americans who have become our leaders, educators, entertainers and other renowned figures. And wouldn't you know it? Some of Jefferson's great ideas may have been borrowed... 😉

The museum is in the same building as the Italian church!

We scored a gorgeous day in D.C., so we went over to the Capitol!

We also got to see our buddies Jackie and Justin...

And the kids played. So happy we could catch up with people after so long!

Then we headed to Virginia Beach!! The lights by Gammy and Granddaddy Rob never disappoint!

We had several mild days, so we hit the beach. Blossom thought it was loads of fun!

Bas probably would have swam if we let him!

Playing out in front of the Cavalier...

And taking a beautiful family photo!

(Plus being silly!)

We took Blossom to the dog park three times while we were in Virginia. Lolly got to go, too. Always entertaining to watch them run around and make furry friends!

Sushi was a MUST while in VB!

So was movie night!

Beth and I got a huge kick out of showing the kids Babes in Toyland with Drew Barrymore and Keanu Reeves. We loved the movie as kids and now I can look back and see how much it foreshadowed a big part of my life...ha! (Attention all Cincy friends: you NEED TO WATCH this movie with your kids!)

More snuggles!

And furry snuggles!

Once again, the kids each had a sleepover with Auntie B. Here's Samuel living it up having breakfast while watching TV.

On the night that Bas and Brie spent the night, we had a power outage! Exciting!

While jogging the next morning, I may have found the root cause of the outage... 😜

Brie found this toy in Gammy's office and it reminded us of Blossom!

Chillaxing on New Year's Eve!

The hotel set up a fun sign out front. Beth and I got dressed up and walked over with our champagne. Woohoo!

Then we pulled a Krebs and put comfy clothes back on! We had planned to go out to dinner that night--at the same place we went back in 2019--but they had to close due to COVID exposure. Sad...

So we pivoted and set up a little table in my parents' foyer (Sebastian set it for us!)...and ordered delicious takeout. It was still a lovely evening!! Cheers!

The kids had cheeseburgers and treats with Gammy and Granddaddy Rob and watched a movie. 😊

Auntie B bought them gold confetti poppers at Target. They were messy and fun!

We feel so fortunate that we could be with family for the holidays this year. Here's to 2022 and all the implications and energy of starting anew! Fingers crossed. Again!!

P.S. Brie had to design and construct a Rube Goldberg machine over winter break. We knew that Gammy would be up to the task and armed with tons of cool stuff Brie could use. They spent hours together designing this. Check it out!!

P.P.S. On Christmas, we got Blossom's DNA results back! We all wrote our guesses down on paper and we all thought we were right...ha! Guesses like 90% American Foxhound and 10% mutt were in the pile. So was 52% hound mix and 48% mutt. The pic below is a Foxhound pup, so how far off could we be?

So imagine our surprise when Tony read aloud, "37.7% Australian Shepherd!" ?!?! She also has collie, golden retriever, German Shepherd and American Pit Bull Terrier, plus traces of other breeds. Since she's bigger than an Australian Shepherd, has shorter fur and brown eyes, it must be the influence of the other breeds. (Or they switched the DNA!) Above all, Blossom is a marvelous, loveable combination of half a dozen breeds that we didn't anticipate at all...amazing!

P.P.P.S. Speaking of canines, Bas 💞 Lolly!