Sunday, January 2, 2011

Holiday Memories

Well, tomorrow it’s back to work for me. Every year it seems like the holidays (and the months) pass more quickly. I was luxuriating in the number of days I had off on December 17th, and now I’m wondering where the time went. This will be a long post because I have a lot of catching up to do.

In the middle of the month Amy and Chris went to their company Christmas party, so we had a sleepover. Some of us look cute with bedhead. Others of us are not having our picture taken.

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Hannah helped Grammy clean out her drawers. She is a fast worker!

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We played “My Little Pony” in our jammies.

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And watched Nick Jr…

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Then mommy crashed our party and the girls had to go home.

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However, Amy had to have some fairly minor surgery which meant that she couldn’t do any lifting for a while, so Hannah and Katie got to spend some special time with Grammy and Grandpa the week before Christmas. Hannah accompanied us as we sang Jingle Bells…

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She learned to drive…

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by turning on the ignition…

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and honking the horn at anyone in her way…

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We sat on Grammy’s lap…

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Learned to play the drum… (It takes lots of concentration.)

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And filled up our glasses to overflowing with love.

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On Christmas Eve we met Judy and Tony at our church for the 4:00 service. It is always a special, sweet service of carols, candlelight, and a simple message God’s love toward a fallen world that came in the form of a baby, Jesus.

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After the service we had dinner at Escalantes which is always yummy.

Erin flew in on Christmas morning, so we had dinner late that afternoon. Lucas had to work Christmas day, so he didn’t come in until the next morning.

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Our holiday table.

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Katie was very excited to see her Aunt Erin.

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As well as Aunt Judy…

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Getting ready to open presents…

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I think that the string on the puppy was the most interesting of the presents for both Hannah and Sawyer.

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Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures of Christmas Day. I was too busy cooking, eating, and cleaning up after the meal. I can’t remember even seeing the babies open the presents. I do know that there were a lot of boxes and wrapping paper. Next year I need to do something differently, I think!

Between Christmas and New Years it has become a tradition for us to take a little shopping trip to the hill country to spend our Christmas money. We left early Monday morning for Fredericksburg, San Antonio, San Marcos (the outlet mall), and Wimberley. Erin needed her Texas shopping fix. Dan was under the weather so didn’t make the trip with us. Amy and Chris were in Galveston with his family. We hit our favorite stores in Fredericksburg - Abella Home, Auer Haus, and D’Vinely Designed – where we were able to get some more ornaments for next year’s trees.

For dinner we went to the Hilltop Café, a cajun restaurant about 11 miles outside of town. It is located in a remodeled old gas station. We ate fried green tomatoes and shrimp.

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This was after our pinto beans and cornbread lunch.

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The next night was spent in San Antonio at the Hotel Contessa. I now have a new favorite hotel. While there, we were able to mingle with the Oklahoma State fans and experience vicariously their excitement since a bowl game is not in our future for 2011! Ha! This was our view out the window.

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And our sitting area…

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Before heading home, we went to the outlet mall in San Marcos and made a quick trip to downtown Wimberley.

Wednesday night Amy and Chris came over to eat leftovers with us.

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And to do a little reading…

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It’s never too early to learn about where you’re from!

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Or to rough-house with Grandpa!

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Thursday night we all (and I do mean all, since it was very crowded and we had to wait an hour for an outside table) went to eat at Lupe Tortilla’s. This isn’t a very good picture, but I needed at least one with Lucas in it!

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Lots of wonderful memories…

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