New Years 2009 Style

For the New Year's holiday [last] year we had some friends from the college days come down and stay with us. The Falls have three boys, so with our two we were up to five kids [four of them boys.] Now here's the fun part...their boys, Hayden, Jackson and Landon all brought their new Nerf guns with them and since Corben had received more dart ammo in his stocking, darts were flying everywhere, [and I'm still finding them in crazy places.] We all had a blast, and wish they could have stayed a little longer - but since they don't live too far away, we'll be able to get together again in the future.

For New Year's Eve day, we wandered down to Colonial Williamsburg soaking in all the holiday/festive fun there. We enjoyed some [really hot] cider and hot chocolate/treats from a bakery there and tried to stay warm, since the temps were in the 40's and cloudy.

We had planned to go back up to CW to enjoy the First Night activities there, but decided we'd had enough cold for one day and just chilled at home and had some good laughs. By the time 12am rolled around, only the two oldest were still awake with the adults and we counted down to 2010. Not surprisingly, we didn't even open the sparkling cider - but had it with breakfast instead and we were all in bed by 12:30am. It was a Happy New Year!

This lasted all of 20 minutes maybe, the pull of the Nerf guns was too strong! ;]

All the kids in Colonial WilliamsburgThe Girls!The Boys and all the kids!

Thanks for coming to visit John and Rachelle, we had a blast and can't wait to have fun times again soon. :D

Starting Fresh

So yes, my blog has been quite neglected as of the recent months. One of my 2010 resolutions is to post something new AT LEAST once a week. Now that I have this in writing, I need to remember that everyone that might read this blog will be watching for new posts and I can be held accountable :D Oh, and I am still within the first week of the new year, since this last week was the "first" week of 2010.

That said, I have a many fun events to catch up on and I will do that [but not all in one post]. I guess the most logical place to start is with the most recent - Christmas and New Year's.

We started out Christmas with some fun traditions-making a gingerbread house [and we never did make the candy train to go with it], driving around to look at Christmas lights and giving out our hand made awards to houses we felt were spectacular [thanks Jill for the idea], and attending the Colonial Williamsburg Christmas Eve tree lighting and Christmas Cannon. We were pretty busy the week before Christmas....Our gingy house...with gumdrop buttons

Our house with lights but we didn't win an award.

The Fife and Drum corp on Christmas EveCarol sing-a-long and tree lightingChristmas Eve jammiesChristmas morningNow that's a full stocking....Very excited about the strollerAnd the aftermath, if you look carefully you might see two little hands sticking out....
:D

"....This is Halloween....."

The fun events of the Halloween month for our family:

Went to a pumpkin patch with friends and picked our own,

Welcomed Daddy home from his deployment,
Enjoyed a Renaissance Festival in Maryland,

Stopped by to visit beautiful Mount Vernon,

Carved our pumpkins,

And went trick or treating as sho kosugi the ninja, Renaissance Maiden and Princess, and the Karate Kid ["cause you're the best....around"]

Backpedaling....

So I've been somewhat of a slacker when it comes to my blog...and I need to make up for that before I post the most recent happenings. Just after Lester returned to his deployment in July, my family [all 8 of them] came to visit us for 2 weeks. We had an amazing time and made so many fun memories!! Here's the proof:

As much fun as we had, we still have more things to see and do so they'll just have to come back again! [Dropping a big HINT here ;] We love them all so much and are so thankful that we had those two weeks together....it's never long enough though! Love you all!!! xoxoxoxoxo

What A Month!

Wow...we've had a power packed month or so, and I'll try to keep it brief :D

Celebrated the Fourth of July at Festival Park and at Fort Bragg with family visiting from Massachusettes,Went indoor skydiving [should have gone 23049238 times...I LOVED it!!],Had our whole house packed and loaded up,
Left Fayetteville :( for our new home :D [and had fun with the animals in the truck while driving -- that's Lexi, our anti-cat/phantom cat Sophie, and Patton (out of view)]
Picked up Daddy from the airport for his two week break from his "job,"
Received and started to unpack our entire house [which came a day late due to the semi-truck breaking down on the side of the road....BUT our mattress got ruined and we got a new one out of it...YAY!]

Found and purchased a new set of wheels for Lester [hard earned and well deserved for spending a year in the sandbox ;]
Took Daddy back to the airport - he'll be home in no time,
And so ends part one of the the month we've had, there are more adventures I need to document so there will be another post in a couple days! :)