Chris went to a Carolina Panthers game with his Dad and his brother-in-law Kenny. I have nothing else to say on the matter since I wasn't there.
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| This is where they wished they could sit. |
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| This is where their tickets dictated they sit. |
About 10 days before Christmas, two-thirds of our apartment got flooded out. Thankfully I was home at the time and have some experience when it comes to unwanted water. (Funny story, we had some minor flooding into Ally's room last week from a broken pipe upstairs. After 3 floods in 12 months' time, I think we've paid our dues.) I immediately started placing boxes onto the beds and flinging as much as I could toward the back of the apartment while Cora and Ally crawled along the spreading waterline saying "Oh, no. Not again. Not again". And the culprit workers? They immediately grabbed a small squeegee instead of trying to turn off the water supply to the sprinkler system pipe they had broken.
When I called the complex office, the entire maintenance staff came running to our rescue. They turned off the river source, helped carry my children to dry ground at a friend's (thank you Williamsons!), and then started clearing the 2 inches of water out of our apartment. We spent 2 nights in a hotel and lived in a drying-out, mini-construction project for a few weeks, but amazingly only lost a bunch of packing material and 2 boxes of Chris' books.
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| The only dry spot where I could salvage some pictures was the bathtub. Some of Chris' flooded-out books. |
We drove out to Raleigh and celebrated Jessie's birthday with her family at her parents' house. Counting up the number of candles on her lavender cake with silver stars, she must have been turning 10. Thank you for letting my girls share your spotlight that day.
One of Chris' coworkers, Zoltan, invited us to a Christmas concert at the historic Moravian church in Old Salem. We got there early so we could walk around the town a bit before the performance. (We'll have to go back sometime for an official tour and to explore the buildings.) We enjoyed the concert. We spent our time listening to good music and watching the 95-year-oldish percussionist diligently but slowly walk from instrument to instrument to play his parts.
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| The Salem Band officially started in 1766 with the founding of the town; it seems the percussionist may have been an original member. |
Ally, Cora, and I visited with Santa Claus at the mall. I didn't get a picture of them sitting on his lap because I would've either had to pay $30 or stand outside the fence to use my own camera. Ally preferred that I skip the picture-taking and stay with them "so Cora wouldn't be scared". I snapped a pic of Good Saint Nick after we were done visiting and safely on the no-pay, public side of the holiday enclosure.
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| Santa sighting at the mall. |
We celebrated Christmas Eve with dinner and games at the Wall's home. Ally and Cora had fun playing with their new friends-- although it wasn't until mid-February that she finally started calling her friends "friends" instead of saying she was just "trying them out and still getting to know them better before deciding whether or not they could be friends." I didn't get a good picture of the kids, but here's one of our contribution to dinner--
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| One of Chris' cheesecakes-- Yummy! |
We celebrated Christmas morning at our house-- starting with pictures in front of our glowing fireplace and a balanced, nutritious breakfast of PopTarts. Then we got all dressed up for 9am church.
When we got home, we changed back into our jammies and opened up some presents.
Later in the afternoon we drove out to Selma and had Christmas dinner with Daddy's family. Nothing says Christmas like climbing all over Grampy with your cousins.
We spent the night at Grammy and Grampy's, and we were blessed with more presents in the morning.
Cora disappeared after lunch. She was found a few minutes later with a full box of crayons. Although Grampy loved the masterpiece she had just made in the guest bedroom, he said it had to go. At least he told her she could still stay.
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| Thank you once again, Mr Clean! |
We made a trip to the Children's Museum at the end of the month-- nothing exciting there except Curious George happened to be visiting. Ally really wanted to meet him and get her picture taken; Cora was petrified and barely tolerated standing in line with her sister. (Since Chris was not with us, she had no choice.) Cora hid her face in my jacket and loudly whined, whimpering more and more with every step we took closer to that big red chair.
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| Ally happily hugging Cora's nightmare. |
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| Cora prefers the plastic George. |
We decided to visit the Natural Science Center of Greensboro on the very last day of the year (partially because we didn't have any plans, but mainly because it was the last day to purchase a discounted family pass). We had fun exploring the museum and visiting all the animals out back. It was warm enough that we didn't need to bundle up and one of the tigers was cooling off in the water. Have I mentioned before how much I love NC?
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| Last family outing of 2011 |
1 comment:
I love that Ally said she was just trying out the friends before they could be classified as real friends. Hilarious!
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