Ok...so I realize that I haven't blogged since before Thanksgiving. Such is the busy life of a kindergarten teacher! All excuses aside, here is the abridged version of Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had an awesome visit with family in Georgia, then headed back to NOLA for 3 weeks, then it was back to Georgia for more family fun for two whole weeks! We visited and caught up with most of our friends and family. We had such a good time relaxing and doing whatever we felt like doing...a true vacation...no stress!!! woo hoo! The next few pictures are out of order, unfortunately, because it has taken me 3 days to do this update (I started updating, then started watching the Falcons game on Saturday night, then I got mad because of the way they were playing and went to bed! This is the first day I've felt like getting back to this! All the others pictures are pretty much in the right order.)
We were blessed to have a White Christmas this year. It was truly magical!!
My "sisters" and me in the snow!
(Now the pictures are back in the right order). This is how we kicked off the Christmas season back in NOLA...Here we are on our way home from the dollar store with all our goodies and our penguin to stuff in our Operation Christmas Child shoebox. What a blessing!
Stephen and me in front of the Poinsettia tree at Celebration in the Oaks at City Park in New Orleans. My students got the opportunity to sing at the Christmas celebration to kick off the Christmas season. The next few pictures are decorations and lights we saw at City Park that night.
This is what Santa looks like in the Who Dat Nation...
Rudolph, swamp style...
Dressed up to watch the Falcons/Saints game...we didn't look so happy after the game. It was a good season, but boy was that a disappointment!
This is Porthos, our four legged baby, that is living with his foster grandparents in Georgia (a.k.a. Stephen's parents, a.k.a. Grammy and Poppy, hehe) until Stephen is finished here. We miss him terribly! He is doing his favorite thing in this picture--chewing on a towel. He has loved ever since he was a little bitty puppy. He carries them around kinda like Linus would with a blanket. :) He has gained quite a bit of weight living with Grammy and Poppy (I think they are feeding him people food, hehe! I'm just glad he seems to be happy. He likes getting to run outside and play.
This is Dixie, Porthos special friend who shares the pen in the backyard with him. She is kinda moody sometimes because she is very very old. But at least she keeps him company!!
Backyard pals!
One of the many of fun times we had playing with our nephew, Walker. Here is Angie trying out Walker's big wheel from Santa!
I got to spend a good bit of time with my family over the break. This is my dad and his sister, my Aunt Joyce while we visited at her house.
Wecome Will!!! Will be soon be joining the Roberts clan, making Walker a big brother!
Over the break, Angie hosted a baby shower for Nicole. The cake was way cute! It was lots of fun getting to spend time with family and some of Nicole's close friends to get her ready to bring Will into the world. The countdown to March 14 has begun!!
One of the ways we kept ourselves awake and kept Walker entertained until midnight New Year's Eve. Candyland is awesome...especially with a 3 year old who thinks its always a good thinkg to get the "cupcake" card, even if that means his game piece is supposed to go back 20 spaces, haha!
New Year's Eve entertainment: Stephen's family always shoots off fireworks at midnight go ring in the new year. We spend the time up until midnight grazing on yummy food and playing games. Stephen's mom, Kathy, even got into playing the new Xbox Kinect that Cliff got for Christmas. So fun and quite comical! :)
The beeeeeautiful sunset on I-1o headed back to NOLA after the break. It made getting stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in Mississippi an extra hour worth it! What a nice end to the most wonderful time of the year!!!
January has been a pretty busy month for us. We started back to work and school, and things haven't slowed down since! Last weekend we celebrated Stephen's birthday by going to Emeril's Delmonico on St. Charles Avenue. Emeril's Delmonico is in an old antebellum house that was later converted into the restaurant Delmonico's. Emeril then bought it and made into one of his restaurants. It was lots of fun getting dressed up and eating deeeeelicious food! I had an epiphany while we were waiting on our food to arrive at the table. I was looking out the window by our table and saw one of the trolleys driving down St. Charles. I thought to myself, "How cool is that?! How often in my life am I going to live in a town that still has a working trolley system. Probably not ever again to be honest! New Orleans is such a strange and bizarre town, but it does have a lot of interesting culture and history. I am glad to say that Stephen and I getting the opportunity to experience all of this.
This past week I had the opporunity to attend a conference for Christian educators in Galveston, Texas. I was very excited because I've never been farther west than New Orleans! This is the beautiful lobby of Moody Gardens where we stayed for the ACSI conference. It was a super nice place to stay. It was nice to get away for just a little while, even if it was for work! I really enjoyed the opportunity to fellowship with some of my coworkers and get to know them a little better. It was also nice to learn some new ideas to implement in the classroom.
This was the view from outside our hotel window. We could see the Galveston Bay and the Aquarium!
The first night we were in Galveston, we all went to eat at The Rainforest Cafe. It was a really fun and yummy place to eat. I've always wanted to eat at one of those restaurants. Stephen and I had a chance to eat at one in Disney, but because it wasn't on the dining plan, we didn't want to waste money eating there! However, after eating there, I now know it would've been worth it!
We had to walk under this beautiful aquarium of fish to go into the restaurant!
These were the elephants that we shared our table with. They trumpeted about every 10 minutes!
My "little" turkey club sandwich that became lunch for Thursday as well!
me and Cha Cha the frog!
We concluded our evening by watching the volcano on top of the restaurant "erupt." This was no small feat because we stood out in the cold waiting for about 20 minutes for this event to actually happen. The volcano "erupts" on all the half hours, but for some reason, this particular eruption was delayed! You can't rush nature I guess haha!
Stephen and me getting ready for the concert. On my way home from Galveston, Stephanie, one of our seminary friends and neighbors in our apartment building, invited us to go with her and Jeff to Biloxi to the Rock and Worship Roadshow hosted by Mercy Me! We off course were happy to tag along! The artists included The Afters, Matt Maher, Thousand Foot Krutch, Jars of Clay, and Mercy Me.
The Afters opened up the concert!
Matt Maher...one of my favorite artists of the night! :)
Mercy Me puts on a VERY good show!!
