Whew! Another Christmas has come and gone. The past 10 days has been a whirlwind of travel, visits, performances, meals, and gift-giving (and receiving!). And despite the hustle and bustle, it has still been a wonderful time with enough down time to make memories and enjoy the season. I am writing this during a break at work so can't post any pictures. Hopefully we can get those up in the next couple of days.
Ten days ago, Sarah was going back and forth to the Ferguson Center in Newport News to participate in final rehersals of The Nutcracker. She was thrilled to perform with the American Youth Ballet with professional ballerinas in this production. She did a great job as Governess, Tin Soldier, and Butterfly. The snowstorm that came through the area made things even more interesting. Happily the performances were not affected.
While I was driving Sarah back and forth to practice and performances, Marti and the rest of our posse travelled to North Carolina to celebrate Christmas with the Burchels. They had a great time despite the poor weather. Lots of babies added to the general joy and mayhem. It was a tiring trip for Marti as she had to battle the elements on the way home...it is not fun driving 30 MPH on I-95 in a snowstorm.
On Sunday, my parents arrived in Williamsburg to spend the week celebrating with us. My brother and his family came into town on Monday. We had a great time together going out for Mexican on Tuesday and hanging out together on Wednesday. Opening presents and sharing a Christmas dinner together was a lot of fun.
Because I was scheduled to work Christmas night, we decided to celebrate Christmas on the 24th. We kept all of our traditions as well; we opened our Christmas pajamas the night before, the kids got up early and looked at their new books, we opened our stockings, ate breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls, and then started exchanging gifts. It was a lot of fun with Kate enjoying her first Christmas. She really got into opening the gifts, opening the box and saying, "oooh"!
One of the highlights was the addition of a little kitten to our fold. Sarah has really been missing her cat Polly that we had in Kenya. She has been after us to get one but life was too busy and hectic earlier in the year. We decided this would be a "purr-fect" (sorry I couldn't resist) time to get a cat. It was such a delight to see Sarah's excitement and joy as she opened the box and a little kitten popped out. After much debate, she decided to name the cat, Holly.
On the 25th, I slept in as the kids played with their new toys. After getting up I spent time just hanging out with the kids. For our Christmas dinner, I grilled burgers. I then went to work wearing red scrubs, a green long sleeve shirt, and a Santa hat. Work was pretty festive and it didn't seem so bad having to work on Christmas Day. We listened to Christmas music all night, ate cookies and candy canes, and generally enjoyed the shift. I was really thankful for that.
This next week I work 6 out of 8 days so will be pretty busy. But the kids are off and hopefully they can rest, play, and enjoy themselves. So much has happened in 2009, we are looking forward to a (hopefully) more relaxed and "normal" 2010.
Comments