Christmas Holiday Highlights

Happy New Year everyone! We hope that you all had a blessed Christmas!We had a very special Christmas this year. We traveled to Florida to be with my (Rebecca's) side of the family.

We flew out of Manchester Airport the Monday before Christmas, and we were so grateful when that plane took to the skies. Two days before, our area got hit with snow and ice, so a lot of the planes were grounded the day before our trip. The airport was a mad-house... people stranded everywhere! But fortunately, our plane took off.

It was a long flight (over 8 hours), and although some of the time was spent wrestling our 30-pound gorilla (Collin), we all survived. We arrived at Atlanta just fine, and after a 3-hour layover, we continued on to West Palm Beach. By that time, it was about 2am UK time, so we were completely exhausted. But, we made it, and it was so worth it.

What fun it was to be in Florida! My parents live in a development where the homes are arranged around a man-made lake. It's just perfect for the kids! They spent a lot of time riding their bikes around the lake, playing on the playground and in the sand court, fishing, and running the remote-control boats. My parents got a push-buggy for Collin to ride in, and he was so happy driving his "car" around the lake everyday. I especially enjoyed being outside and feeling the sunshine! Bliss!

It was wonderful being with family, of course. My brother Jesse flew down to be with us, and the kids had so much fun playing with him. My sister and her family live about a half-hour away from my parents, so we were able to spend a lot of time with them too. I especially loved being with my niece, Summer Grace, who kept us entertained with all of her animal impressions and faces! She is so full of life and joy-- I just love her!Some of the highlights of our trip included:

• Ethan got to go golfing with my brother Jesse and brother-in-law Eric. The course was located between the ocean and the intercoastal, so the scenery was great.
  

• Going swimming and decorating cookies at my sister's house.
• We went to an incredible Christmas Eve service at my parents' church, and celebrated Christmas Eve with family and friends.

• We received a phone call from my brother Jason, telling us of his engagement to his girlfriend Ashley! Congrats!
  
• Christmas morning! Toys and Games!

• Flying remote-control helicopters with Uncle Jesse.
  
• Christmas dinner with the Schultzes (my sister's family).
• A fun day at Lion Country Safari.

• Barnum & Bailey Circus!
• Date night for Ethan and I (we got to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie).
• Shopping kid-free at Jo-Ann's for some quilting fabric.
• A visit to the turtle hospital and time at the beach.

The "Low-light" of our trip was definitely the germs that infiltrated our fun. My mom and I both came down with sore-throats on Christmas Eve, and the kids each got a fever at one point. Unfortunately, it did put a damper on our fun, but we didn't let it keep us down.

Many, many thanks to you Mom and Dad, for a wonderful Christmas and vacation! We love and miss you already!

Nativity

This afternoon, both Tim and Maddie were involved in a Nativity Play with their school at a local church. I have to say, I love the fact that they go to a Church of England School (which believe it or not, is a public school around here!). Not only do they get to say "Merry Christmas" at their school instead of "Happy Holidays," but they can even be a part of a Nativity! I LOVE IT!

The service today had lots of wonderful singing along with the play. Maddie played the part of a shepherd this time (she was an angel last year). Her teacher told me that Maddie was a little disappointed when she saw the first costume they had for her (it was brown). It must have felt like a demotion from her sparkly angel costume from last year. But fortunately, they found a prettier, blue shepherd-girl costume to appease her.

Anyway, here is her part:

And a few pictures too:

The Three Wise MenMary and Joseph

A Christmas Carol

This afternoon, Tim's class put on a performance of "A Christmas Carol." Tim played the role of "The Ghost of Christmas Past," and he did an excellent job. Actually, everyone in the class did an excellent job! They had a lot of lines to memorize and there was a lot of stage direction as well. For a small class (13 kids total, grades 2-5), I was really impressed!

This is a picture of the scenery which the students painted themselves.Here's is Tim's acting debut:


And a few more pictures...Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas PresentScrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Past (in the background), Tiny Tim and Bob CrachitAnd the last line, of course, "GOD BLESS US EVERYONE!"

Grassington Dickensian Christmas Festival

This past Saturday, we went as a family to a local village called Grassington where they were holding their annual Dickensian Festival. To get there, we took a lovely drive through the Dales. It was gorgeous.When we arrived at Grassington, we quickly found out that we were not the only ones attending this event. They were busing people in by the hundreds!!! The village was packed!Anyway, the festival was a Dickensian (as in Charles Dickens) Christmas Festival which they have every year. As you walked around the village, you could see different people dressed up in period costume. Here are a few examples:The Town CrierThis is my friend Christy with some local drunkards who were questioning her about her "camera" invention. (And yes, my children were afraid of these guys!)As you can imagine, the shops were packed with people. The streets were lined with market stalls selling their wares and some warm food (it was f-f-f-freezing!!). You could even have a go at smashing some crockery (one pound bought you five balls to throw and break as many dishes as you could). But the highlight of our day, was when we came upon the Leeds Morris Men who did a little jig for the crowd. I say this was the highlight because for their second dance they chose Ethan out of the crowd to join them!! What a good sport.

Here he is prepared with his stick. Enjoy the video:


After the dance, they awarded him with a certificate for participating. He was such a good sport. I was so proud of him!

PWOC Christmas Brunch

This year, I am involved in a women's organization on base called PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel). My job description is the VP of Spiritual Life, which basically means I oversee our weekly Bible Studies. I serve on the board with some incredible women including my good friend Christy Jenkins (who also happens to be the one who takes all of those incredible photos of my family... she is very gifted!).

Anyway, Christy and I had a vision this year to have a Christmas Brunch. For both of us, the churches that we left behind in Maryland would keep this annual tradition as a way for the ladies to get together for some food and fellowship, and to get our hearts right for the Christmas season. The PWOC board decided that our theme for the brunch would be "Daughters of the King," which sent Christy's and my imaginations into full-speed!

Christy did so much work organizing and advertising this event. She is also incredibly gifted at decorating. With the help of some other women, she transformed our chapel annex into a masterpiece with tapestries and lovely decorations throughout. It really was beautiful.As for me, I got to work right away on writing a short script for a skit to be performed. The title was "Daughters of the King," and the story line basically was about 4 daughters who each prepared for their father's (the King) return from war. One decorated the kingdom, one prepared a feast, one made a gift, and the other prepared her heart.... you see the analogy. Sometimes when reading the script, I felt like a fourth grader could have written it, but I suppose that didn't matter.

I also was responsible for giving the main message for the morning. I am realizing that preparing a message is quite a process, and I've been learning so much through it. Basically, my message was about what it means to be a Daughter of the King. I focused on looking at God with the characteristics of being a king, and following with the analogy, what it's like to be in His kingdom instead of the ones we've made for ourselves. I was really pleased at how it came out. Ethan helped me work through a lot of it, and it was a great experience working together.

Our brunch was last Saturday (12/5), and it was a true success. We had about 50 women attend, which was wonderful. (A few weeks prior, we only had about 20 women signed up, so to have that many there was so encouraging.) Different women set, decorated, and hosted tables (here's a picture of my table). We had a delicious brunch, some gorgeous music (with piano, violin, flute, and singing), some door prizes, a pinning ceremony for our new members, the skit (by the way, that's our chaplain playing the part of the king), and the message.I was so pleased with how well everything went for our first attempt. All of the women seemed to leave encouraged and re-focused on the Christmas message, and I suppose that's what's it's all about.

Mission Possible: Tim's 8th Birthday

A couple of months ago, Tim was reading a Secret Agent book of mine, and he told me that he'd like to have a Secret Agent birthday party this year! I can't tell you how excited I was about that. It just seemed like an original idea that had a lot of possibilities.

Here are the invitations that I made for it. As you can see, the kids needed to crack the code to get the invitation details.So last weekend, we hosted Timothy's 8th birthday party here at the house. He had 7 of his friends from school come. Ethan and I both dressed up in a trench coat and sunglasses, and we welcomed each of the kids into the house through a carefully cracked door, looking for other spies who may have followed them! Ethan downloaded some music for the event, and played the theme songs from Mission Impossible and James Bond, of course.

When the kids first got here, we put them straight to work learning a new kind of code called the pig-pen code. They had to find their coded name, and write a secret message to a fellow agent.Next, we had them put on secret disguises with clothes from our dress-up box. We had some very creative disguises.After a lunch of Ethan's home-made pizza, we split the boys and girls apart and played games involving target practice (with velcro darts), and a game Tim named "Sly Spy."

We then had cake and ice-cream. Tim decided that he'd like to have a bomb for a cake. What made it extra fun was the mini-sparklers that Ethan found to be the bomb's fuse! The kids really enjoyed watching it, and were all a little disappointed when the cake didn't actually explode all over the kitchen!After the kids were done with their cake, I went to get them their goody bags. But oh no! The enemy spy had hidden them somewhere in the house, and left them clues to find them. The clues were very tricky, I thought, but not for these super-spies. In fact, they found them so quickly that mommy spy had to make up some games at the end to kill some time!

All in all, it was a great party. And now my Secret Agent Tim is 8 years old. Impossible!