We are almost finished!  We made it through the longest personal project I have ever endeavoured (once I take the last picture today).  We were a couple hours late on a photo once, but other than that, we never missed a single day!  I say “we” because my poor husband was the subject of 73 photos (if you count hands and feet in shots).

Here are the last 9 days:

Monday, December 22nd was a super long day for me and I was counting down the hours until I could crash at day’s end.  After attending a friend’s citizenship ceremony in the morning, I taught all day at work, and then had four of my most energetic students back-to-back in the evening.  However, this wonderful little package arrived from my secret santa which was so fun to open!  It was the perfect way to wrap up the evening.

Tuesday, after work, I taught my last three piano lessons until the New Year, finishing around 7:30pm.  Nick’s parents and siblings all came over just after 8pm for snacks and some good family time.  It turns out I wasn’t the only one doing a photo project as my one sister-in-law was photographing this stuffed cat all over the country in their travels:

Wednesday, was Christmas Eve, but I still had to work as one of us has to be at the office at all times in case of emergencies.  It was a pretty fun day to be at work as everyone that didn’t have enough holidays to take the time off, or was in charge of an area like I was, was there.  We threw broccoli at each other, we built chocolate Christmas trees, and we got to leave early.  (We also did some work, too!).   Nick picked me up from the train station and we headed straight over to church for the 4pm service.  After that, it was out to Nick’s aunt and uncle’s place in the valley with the whole gang for food, games, movies, and hanging out.  I also took advantage of new photography subjects for my daily:

Thursday, we were up and out the door just after 9am, to pick up a friend from church who spent Christmas with our crazy large family.  We drove out to the valley, opened stockings, had a traditional Ukrainian breakfast that Grandma and Grandpa cooked for us all, and then opened presents from each other (we drew names).  Nick and I had his oldest sister and his Grandpa to buy for, and the middle sister and one of the cousins bought for us.  Afterwards there was lots of hanging out, playing board games, and then a big Christmas dinner feast.  We were going to do family photos that day, but decided to postpone until the 26th in favour of relaxing.

Friday was photo day.  Since Nick’s brother needed to leave for work at 10:30am, we were out and ready to start shooting just after 9am.  We did all the photos with him first, all the photos with the Grandparents second, all the pictures of the cousins third, and left our immediate family until the end.  We just beat the rain, and even had to take shelter a few times during the shoot.  It took almost 3 hours, but we got ‘er done!  You can see a bit of it HERE if you like.  A few hours later, Nick took me home as I was coming down with something.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was actually coming down with the worst flu I have had since I was about 8 or 9 years old!

Saturday, I didn’t leave the bed even once except to get liquids and use the washroom.  This photo pretty much sums up my entire day while Nick was off with the family:

Sunday, I was still in bed for the majority of the day and missed out on seeing the Hobbit with everyone due to feeling so ill.  Nick came and picked me up around super and I bundled into the car with a hoodie and blanket and joined everyone for supper.  Then it was right back to bed shortly after that.  I didn’t manage to grab a shot out the car window on the way, however:

Monday, my fever finally started to come down a little bit on its own, but I still didn’t get out of bed until almost noon.  Nick’s whole family (us included) love the t.v. series, “Once Upon A Time”.  Since it’s filmed locally, they all went on a tour of some of the popular locations.  We joined them in the afternoon, but I just sat down in a coffee shop and chatted with my mother-in-law while they all finished exploring.  I had zero energy to even walk around the block and wanted to stay nice and warm.  I managed to grab one quick shot over the water before we headed back, though.

Tuesday, everyone headed back to the interior, and we both stayed home sick.  Nick’s been sick this whole week as well, just without the fever.  I managed to go from the bed to the couch, and that’s where I stayed for about 11 hours in a row while I blitz edited through all the remaining family photos I hadn’t managed to work on throughout the week.  I also called in sick for the following day because, even though Tuesday was the first day I woke up without running a fever, I pretty much felt like I got run over by a heard of large dogs that made sure they stepped on each rib as they trampled me!

And now I just have one last photo to post!  A photo that I still have 8 hours to take, so it will have to wait 😉