Veritas

Here are a few more Christmast photos. This is the music room in my parent's house, the traditional place for the family Christmas tree.

Ellie, Mark and Melanie down by the creek.

My mother's parents joined us at Heimat (the Karbach homestead in New Braunfels) for the Christmas celebration with my dad's side of the family. All of my aunts, uncles and cousins were in attendance.

Jake opens a gift while Gwynna, Dustin and Lowry look on.

Jon, Beth, Oliver and Matt were also paying close attention.

Jake seems fond of his Karbach sign. All the cousins got these becuase Karbach is the name of our great grandfather.

Gary and Oliver show off for the camera.

Kelly watches intently. My dad distributed gifts from under the tree.

I'm sure something really interesting caught everyone's eye, but I don't remember what. :)

In what promises to become an anual event, the cousins participated in a lego building race. It was all arranged by Ethan, who let each cousin choose a lego set to build. The one who finished building his set first won an extra set! Here Jake starts to build the Millenium Falcon.

Master lego builder and professional engineer Taylor took an early lead.

Gwynna didn't chose the easiest model.

Lowry chose the twin pod racers -- probably one of the more difficult ones.

Matt -- another expert lego builder -- chose the twin space ships.

Duke chose the most complicated of the lego sets, and decided to build it in the bedroom away from distractions.

The race is on!

Taylor declares victory.

Gwynna (third place after Taylor and Matt) displays her creations.

Duke wins the booby prize for finishing last -- a Duplo kit for remedial Lego training.

But wait! There's a problem with the Millenium Falcon model. Jake wins the booby prize instead!

Here's a nice photo of me with my mother's parents.

And here's my dad distributing the Karbach sausage signs.