Merry, Merry Christmas!

Hi Everyone!

We had a good last week. It was pretty busy for Lee. Read about our crazy flight change and check out his happenings while he was Back in Memphis! Thanks to the Winters for their wonderful hospitality.

We brought a good-sized load of stuff to my parents on Tuesday. Wednesday I spent the morning bringing it up to the attic above their garage. I also found our Christmas stuff that was stored up there and decorated my parent’s front porch and the upstairs of their house.

Thursday my mom and I got the gingerbread all done for making houses. Later that afternoon the kids and I went to Daniel & Amy’s so I could babysit. That went pretty well. We left around 10 pm and drove around for a couple minutes to see the lights. Clark and Cal were still up and they wanted to see the lights. They got to see a big inflatable train on someone’s roof.

Friday was the big day! We picked Lee up from the airport. YEAH! He feels that boards went fine. We’ll find out for sure how they went in a few weeks. It was great having Lee back. That night we had baked potatoes for dinner and then made gingerbread houses. Daniel & Amy’s family came for the festivities. It’s been so great for Clark to be with Anthon. Cal and Rachel are having a lot of fun together too. And of course, Lee and I enjoy talking with Daniel and Amy. They are really fun to talk to! Friday night we continued to stay up and played a game with Sheldon. I was going to make chocolate chip cookies to eat while we did gingerbread houses, but that didn’t happen. So after the kids were in bed I made some. Then close to midnight I put some breaded mozzarella cheese sticks in the oven. YUM! And of course we ate them too.

Saturday morning Mom, Dad, Sheldon and all of us went to a tree farm. I forget what it was called. But we picked out a Christmas tree. All last week the weather was FABULOUS. Note the pictures of Shanna & Haley on Thursday in short sleeves and shorts! But Saturday it turned chilly. Okay, so it was only about 50, but when it was 75 just the other day, 50 seems cold! It was sprinkling too. Anyway, the weather was very fitting for getting a tree. It would have felt weird finding a Christmas tree in shorts. I really like the one that we decided on.

After the Christmas tree picking event we took off to Whiteville. Once we got the girls situated with the Stricklands, and the boys with Leanne, we headed on down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Dr. Lewis and his wife had a Christmas party for all their employees and some of their family. We ate at Benjamin’s—a seafood buffet. Very yummy. Lee especially enjoyed it. I tried some shark. Then we went to the Carolina Opry. They had their Christmas variety show going. It was great! At one point they were doing something about Christ’s birth, and they were showing clips from the short Nativity movie that our church produced! Isn’t that cool!? The 3rd to last song was O Holy Night. The emcee sang it. WONDERFUL. There was also a group of guy tap dancers-4 of them. They are called “All That”. They were great too. It was a super fun evening and quite a treat from the Lewis’.

Sunday we sang in the choir at church. We did Silent Night as the closing song. Lee and I sang one of the verses in Spanish. After there was a potluck dinner. There was a lot of food there. One fellow made a rice casserole and put squirrel in it, so I tried some of that. It was kind of sad that it was our last Sunday there. Everyone has been so nice to us. This Thursday is our last storytime at the library, and that will be sad too! I am so grateful for technology that makes it easy to stay connected with friends and family.

Have a great week. We are SO excited about Christmas! ONE WEEK LEFT!