Christmas and the days after...

Hello everyone! I hope all of you in the cyberworld & beyond had a wonderful Christmas with your families! Ours was a very quiet one which started WAY too early on Christmas morning...
We spent the first part of Christmas Eve with Ted and I on the ROOF of our new sunroom - laying shingles! YES - I (who is terrified of heights unless we're on a fast moving roller coaster) got on the ROOF and was actually HELPFUL! We were so pleased to get all of the shingles up before the snow - WHEW! The scariest part was getting up & down the extension ladder!

We were invited to talk about what Peace means to our family at our church's early "Children's service" on Christmas eve... we've decided that that service best suits our family. After that, we went for dinner at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants... China Palace in Durham. After contemplating whether to go to a movie at the theater, we settled on heading home to watch the Polar Express - what a nice way to end our Christmas Eve.

The girls were up ridiculously early on Christmas morning - just way too excited to see what Santa had brought them! So, Ted and I got up at 4:00 (YES 4:00 a.m.!) so the girls could get Santa time out of their systems... then Ted (first) followed by Colby & me decided to take a little siesta so we could function the rest of the day. Jessica, on the other hand, stayed up... happily logging in her new wolf Webkinz and having some alone time.

When we got up for the 2nd time, Ted made a very yummy Turkey Gumbo! Later in the day, my Dad & Jan came by to share some of that Gumbo & check out Ted's progress on the sunroom. We celebrated Christmas with my Dad, Jan, my brother, Nathan & girlfriend, Katie, and step-brother John & friend Carlin on Sunday night with a tasty dinner at Peony Asian Bistro followed by a gift exchange at Dad's & Jan's including some very rummy figgy pudding!

The original plan was for me to head to Virginia on Sunday to spend time with cousins who were visiting from Charlottesville (Virginia), Wyoming, and Tennessee, but the weatherman was correct for a second time this season and Mother Nature brought us some CHRISTMAS SNOW! Lots of it! It started falling sometime Christmas night and continued on heavily for a good part of the day on Sunday. It was absolutely beautiful! We got a good 5-6" I would say. We were able to go down the road (off Old NC-10) to a nice sledding hill that we found with the last big snow and have a BLAST sledding!
Today (Monday) has been a day of semi-relaxation for me, more hard work for Ted on the addition, and playdates for the girls... here's to hoping that you all are finding some down time as well...