It is Friday night, December 30 and I just now feel like I've caught up on life since Christmas started. For us, it started Christmas Eve morning with breakfast at the Bekah and Shane Wallace house. Then, we ended up in Whiteville at the Edward's annual Christmas party. It was a nice party and Santa even showed up for the kids! David took advantage of having a sober driver and I drove us back to Little River that night so we could go to the Martin's house Christmas morning and watch Liza & Margaret play with all their goodies. We got up at a decent hour Christmas day and exchanged gifts. Santa got me a Canon 7D, which is amazing and I can't wait to REALLY know how to use it. I also got a pair of earrings that are a match to the bracelet I got for our anniversary. They are beautiful. Both of those presents shut me up because all week I kept asking David if he was expecting something to come in the mail, or if the rest of my presents were in Whiteville or something. I mean, he had like 12 presents and I had 2. Of course, once I found out what was in each present, I promptly opened my mouth and inserted my foot. After saying thank you. Santa brought David a lot of clothes, a hunting jacket, socks, nice long johns, etc. Christmas is always a good time to update a closet!
At the Martin's, we enjoyed brunch with the whole David Fort side of the family and the Martin side of the family. Margaret entertained us in her dress up outfits and Liza danced with the Wii, performed various medical procedures on "patients"and we all ate a delicious breakfast. We left there and hit the highway to Clinton to see the Raynor side of the family. As usual, it was a good time and so great to see everyone.....especially Granddaddy! Another holiday and that man is still here to celebrate with us! We ate fantastic food and played the Dirty Santa game, which as usual, provided plenty of entertainment. We came home with a nice fleece and a travel flat iron. We left Clinton around 8 or 8:30 and David drove us home safely to the beach.
On the 26th, we woke up and went to Steve & Julia's house just down the road for brunch and family Christmas on his side. Julia's kids were there, along with us, the Martin's and the Tripps. Not to mention James, Lindsay & Uncle Jim. We exchanged gifts, had great food (again) and (again) were totally entertained by the kids. Margaret has an enthusiasm for life that is unmatched by just about anyone. She is so fun. Liza is so smart, lovable and just plain cute. Eli & Ean are both a bundle of fun and I'm always giggling at something Eli said. After a few hours there, it was back to Whiteville for more Christmas fun.
David and I met Jen, Curry, the girls & Soo Soo at Soo Soo's house in Whiteville to exchange our presents before heading to Granny Sledge's house for dinner with the extended Sledge/Magenbauer family. The girls got dress up clothes, leotards, books, leap pad cases and games and more. We all got spoiled with great gifts that we needed (new sheets)!! We moved on to Granny Sledge's around 6 and enjoyed dinner, laughing, more presents and just generally a good time with family. Granny was in her room and awake part of the night so we all got a chance to go in and talk to her. Such a sweetheart! We left there again around 8 to head back to Little River.
I had to coach Tuesday - Thursday mornings and was looking forward to having the afternoons to catch up on EVERYTHING. Tuesday, we cleaned, took down inside Christmas decorations and fixed soup for dinner because we were having people over to watch the NC State Bowl game. We had a great time with Kelly & Whitney, Jenna & Cleve. It was late when the game ended so I'm pretty sure I fell asleep in 2.2 seconds. Wednesday, I worked and was running errands that afternoon returning some things, picking up some stuff from Jen and looking forward to getting home and kicking back for the night. I got a text from David that we'd been invited to dinner at the Beach House at 7pm......I shed a small tear for the fact that I wasn't going to be in my PJ's at 7pm, but got over it because that meant we'd get to hang out with the Magenbauer families from VA, the Woodards, Martins, Soo Soo, etc. I shopped until I wanted to lay down in the middle of Target and take a nap, then went to the beach house early to hang out and simply sit down. I was worn slam out. Dinner was good and fun but I had to go around 8:30pm to avoid falling asleep on the 15 minute drive home. Thursday I worked and after a short couple of errands afterwards, I got home and was around the house the rest of the day! Woop! David had a guys night at the farm Thursday night so not only did I have the night at home with no agenda, but I was alone and it was quiet (with the exception of the occasional whining dog). Friday, again, I had no plans and what a wonderful feeling! I got so much "catch-up" work done for the gym and even feel somewhat prepared (work wise) to have this baby and not have administrative work hanging over my head. David came home after a fun night with the boys, Bekah came over and we hung stuff up in the boy's room. It's coming along nicely and I'll have pictures tomorrow when I have good natural lighting to take pictures in. Tonight, we ate leftovers, watched a movie and YES, I was in pajamas by 7pm. Life is good.
Tomorrow (New Year's Eve) is David's 35th birthday. It's also New Year's Eve and I'm 8.5 months pregnant. We pondered what to do for his birthday AND NYE and we couldn't come up with much that didn't include being out and me being "that pregnant lady" in a bar after midnight. Hmph. So, considering I don't really care about being "that lady" in the bar EVER, we'll probably do dinner somewhere and ring in the new year at home. OR, we'll go up to Sunset Beach to the Wallace beach house and play with fireworks left over from the wedding. We'll see.....it's David's birthday and he can decide.
I'll report later on what we did to ring in the new year but it'll probably be a boring post. Something that wasn't so boring was the fact that I nearly lost ALL my pictures on my computer (over 30,000) when Iphoto crashed as I was importing Christmas photos. Eek! I wanted to cry, but then again, knew that I should have been better at backing up my computer, etc. Thankfully, I'm an apple care customer and Apple takes great care of folks like us. Thanks to Rex, in Oregon, I have my pictures. I don't even know that guy but he's my hero of the week. In honor of having my pictures back, on Sunday, I'm going to post my favorite pictures from 2011. I might even sleep with my new external hard drive (that now houses all of my pictures) under my pillow. Have I mentioned how awesome apple is?? I really like them and their customer service. And I really like that it's 10pm and I'm ready for bed.....goodnight friends.
