New Year, New Room

After dropping Kate off at the airport Tuesday I came straight home and started putting away the Christmas Decorations. Once put away, our family room just felt so empty and quite frankly depressing. The void of the tree, the Christmas Village...of Kate...was too much to handle honestly. I never felt like the room held it's true potential with the furniture set up the way it was. Now though, I LOVE this room! It feels so much warmer, and cozier.  I utilized the rest of Mom's old suitcases to make a side table for the lamp and when Kevin got home and saw it he was thrilled!!

The new look for the room doesn't help the fact that Kate is back at school and not here, but it helps with the dreaded "after the holiday blues" that always seems to come when the Christmas decorations get put away and you realize that another Christmas has flown by way too fast.

Christmas Eve and Day

What a wonderful Christmas we had! On Christmas Eve I made dinner at home and then we went to our church for a wonderful Christmas Eve service. I love the way our church has been decorated for Christmas. Here are a few shots.

After church we headed over to our down town area for a little outdoor ice skating. I chose to sit it out, because I did not want to take a chance of a fall and re-injury of my back.

Originally, Kyle was feeling a little timid about going out on the ice. So Kevin and Kate put on their skates and got ready to hit the ice.

Once he saw how much fun they were having though, he quickly went out to join them!

great job Kyle!

Way to fly Kate and Kevin!

Kate had such a good time!

Father and Daughter skate team

On Christmas morning I made my sticky carmel buns that I've been making for years along with bacon and juice. We nibbled on breakfast in our pj's while opening our stockings and gifts.

Santa spoiled us this year!

Always the comedian...Kevin puts a bow on his forehead!

Santa brings Kevin a new Carhartt jacket.

Kyle opens his new airsoft gun

Kate opens some new clothes

After opening gits, we all got dressed and went to see AVATAR in 3D.

Kate and I in front of the big tree at the mall where we go to the movies.

Kevin and Kate

Our plan after the movie was to go to PF Changs for dinner. However it was closed along with every other restaurant in town. We searched for almost an hour but could not find ONE restaurant that was open. We soon realized "we are not in Vegas anymore!", where we would have easily found an open restaurant! So we ended up taking fast food back to the house!! Not exactly the Christmas dinner we had in mind, but we all kept a good attitude about it. We topped of the evening all enjoying a slice of the grasshopper pie I had made (another tradition).

We look forward to Dad and Polly coming in from a week long vacation in Hawaii tonight and we will celebrate a 2nd Christmas with them on Sunday morning.

I was blessed to receive a NKJ version of the bible. (New King James Version) which is the version of the bible our pastor preaches from and we use in all our bible studies. It is leather bound and Kevin dedicated it to me. I also received some of my favortite Philosophy Amazing Grace body wash and lotion and a big soft "Comfy Robe" in Christmas red. I love all my gifts!

Festival of Lights!

We had a wonderful time last night with the kids. We went to a nearby historical site that has a "festival of lights" display every year at Christmas. We had a wonderful time walking through the grounds of this site and seeing all of the millions of lights and hundreds of holiday characters! The decorations that were displayed were some of the most beautiful I've ever seen and I KNOW I've never seen that many lights! In addition to the festival lights, near by shops were open and we browsed through many beautiful shops. We topped off the evening by having hot chocolates and ginger bread cookies from a store at the site that boasted "The best hot chocolate in the world" It was darn good! Other attractions we enjoyed watching were the ice skaters on the out door rink and horse drawn carriage rides. It was a wonderful time and we can't way to go back next year.

Large blocks were stacked on top of each other. This K and J were just too perfect to resist standing any one the "KJ's " in our house in front of.

One of the most beautiful mantles I've ever seen.

this is a courtyard area. When you look up, each small balcony has a life size angel figurine that moves. So beautiful!!

a closer look at one the angels

Kate and I pose with an elf

This giant nutcracker welcomes you to the site.

the lights were breath taking!

these whimsical angels were cute.

the horse drawn cinderella buggies looked like so much fun, but the cost to ride was WAY too expensive!

more moving characters adorn the outside of the main building

My family

Here are the pics my Dad took of us on his back patio for our Christmas cards. I think he did a great job! By now, family and friends should have received my card and annual letter. Merry Christmas!!!