My girls

All my girls: Becky (darkest hair); Cyndi (medium brown hair); Amy (strawberry blond hair).

My girls! We had our "annual" Christmas breakfast. I started this tradition back when Becky and Cyndi were teenagers. Amy wasn't part of my family yet.

I tried to have a breakfast with them every year, and then we'd meet up with their father, who worked downtown in Cincinnati, and we'd walk around looking at the decorations and go over to what is now Duke Energy and look at the model train display.

I continued this even when the grandchildren started coming. It seemed like every year for a few years we added a new baby and the restaurant we always went to downtown was getting more and more cramped. The restaurant was just a little "hole-in-the-wall" place, but we enjoyed it, and we could get a good, inexpensive breakfast there. Until...

The last time we went there -- service was horrible (I think the waitress was put off by so many babies), the food was really bad, and by the time we got out of there because of the poor service, the children, even the older ones, were all cranky. So, I decided, never again would we go there.

And that was the year we moved to Kentucky. I could have continued the trips to Cincinnati proper, but there is a Bob Evans about 1/4 mile from our home, and we have gone there most years since.

There has been a gap in our visits to Bob Evans over the past couple of years, but this year I was determined to have my daughters -- and whatever children could come and join us -- have breakfast with me.

It was a time of getting reacquainted and talking and getting caught up on all the children's lives and even the adults' lives. I am so glad we were able to get together just to chat (and eat).

It was lovely.

ttfn