Christmas morning

Many hours spent shopping and transporting and wrapping Christmas gifts. Excitement is in the air....

Many minutes spent tearing apart paper and boxes and packages. Time to inspect and try out all the new treasures....

Ross Prep School Christmas Program 2009

The theme was "Christmas around the world."

Santa brought each of the the children an early gift. Payton wanted to know why Santa had the same shoes as Mr. B the gym teacher, and why the present was wrapped in the same wrapping paper that we have at home. And on Christmas Eve, she wanted to know what happened to Santa's face (see previous post picture) from this Santa visit.

Payton and her good friend, Bella.

Brennan and Alexis (from Greece.) These are the only 2 second graders in their school, so they stick together.

December 2009

We had such a busy December, so here is a quick overview, pictures to come next. It began with my friend Lexy flying in for my birthday. We spent 8 fun-filled days NOT relaxing at the beach or pool. We managed a quick swim 2 hours before she was to leave for the airport, because what kind of Caribbean vacation is it if you didn't even make one appearance at the swimming pool.

After Lexy left, I had one day of cleaning house and packing before we left for a family vacation in Curacao. We had a great time there, despite how hard it is to travel around the Caribbean (if you've done it you know what I mean.)

We finished off a nice vacation with me getting some sort of food poisoning, which luckily didn't hit in full force until 12 hours after we got home. On the plus side, it was a miserable but easy way to lose the extra pounds gained while eating to your hearts content for the previous week on vacation.

We had a nice and quiet Christmas morning here by ourselves, and then spent the evening having dinner with the Elder and Senior missionaries and another American couple who are students here. We had a repeat of last year's dinner, which the highlight was a 10 lb. prime rib that the executive chef here at the hotel slow-cooked all day for us. It was awesome!

In between all of this we had our branch Christmas party, 2 hotel holiday party's, the hotel New Year's Eve party, the kid's school Christmas program, Payton's informal dance recital and end-of-year party, and a few "high pollution advisory days," no, not from all the cars in St. Kitts, but from the volcano on another island 40 miles away spewing ash.

Now we have 7 more days of play and relaxation before the kids start school again, so we'll see what kinds of activities we can find to keep us busy this week.

2010

We got dressed up and went out, representing the "sober" Marriott executives at the big hotel party that ended with fireworks at midnight.

We (meaning the kids) woke this morning to welcome a new year! We had such a crazy December that we had no time or energy to blog. We will soon update with a few pictures from our many December events. In the meantime, Happy New Year to you.

A day to give thanks

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a fun day.

The kids had school but they had a special Thanksgiving lunch for the children and families to participate in. The blue building here is the school, with children who attend from ages 6 months (daycare) up through 10th grade.

That night we hosted 24 people for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a crowd but we had fun visiting and spending time with our "family" here, mostly missionaries and American members of the branch. Everyone's tummy's were filled and there was plenty of food to go around.

There's nothing you want to do more after a couple of 10,000 calorie meals than go out to the pool and show off your figure. That's the reason I stayed behind the camera.

Sugar and spice and everything nice....

that's what this little boy is made of! If you know Damon you know what I mean.

Are you serious?

Somebody in this household taught the baby how to play games on the computer.