Winter Break

 I wasn't that great about taking pictures over Winter Break.  I took a few photos with my phone, but that was about it, unfortunately.  Winter Break was less than two weeks for the girls this year, so it seemed to go by quickly.  As always, we enjoy picking out a tree, decorating, and having the extra light in the house during the darker winter months.  We also enjoy catching some traditional Christmas movies, but the favorite, by far, is still National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation which is a must watch for us every year.

Christmas baking is also another big production each year.  I don't know if I'd qualify these two as "help" but they did make a pretty tasty batch of cookies (all of which unfortunately got eaten before it was time to actually put together the cookie plates I give).

Speaking of things that aren't exactly helpful at Christmas, there's this one.  At 10 1/2 years old, she'll still steal a gingerbread ornament off the tree and bite an arm off it means she'll get some attention.  As I'm sure you'd guess, she hardly ever gets attention in this family.  If you were to ask her she's starving - both for food and people to constantly pay attention to her.  

It's been a Christmas Eve tradition for as long as I can remember that we get together with Aunt Jeanette's family for a nice dinner and time together as a family.  It's not just lots of food and conversation, it's also seeing what creation Aunt Jeanette has come up with that year to give everyone a laugh.  It started with just her doing things, but it has branched out into a family affair (like it or not)!  This year we were all Jesus's sheep - some trying to be lost, and some feeling like they're going to the slaughter, but all being good sports about it...for the most part!  :) 

A tradition we've had going for a couple years is to hike Raven's Rock on New Year's Day.  Last year we got a very unseasonably warm day on 1/1, but this year it was a bit of the opposite. What was more cold rain when we left our house, turned into big, fluffy snowflakes when we got to the hike.  It was really beautiful!  The hike is a workout, so you stay warm even in the snow when you're hiking, so it was actually perfect for all of us and we all enjoyed how beautiful it was to be out in the woods and on the summit with big snowflakes falling all around us.  We had a great time hiking then stopped at our usual spot, Bear Chase Brewery, right down the street from the hike to get some tasty food and refreshments.  It's always such a fun way to spend the day and a great way to start off a new year!

Thanksgiving 2023

 Thanksgiving this year was back down at Hartfield again this year.  We were missing Bo and Brittany, but the rest of us made there for a few days in between end of season soccer tournaments! We had a few nice weather days which is always a bonus and while the fishing wasn't very successful, Mark gave it a couple attempts.  The girls did a Turkey Trot, Garland harvested some of the oysters he had been growing, Pops cooked a great turkey, and Mouse made a delicious Thanksgiving meal as always.  Having our family healthy and growing (with the birth of little Camden) are just a couple of the things we are thankful for this year.

Fall Soccer

 It was a busy fall for Lyla and soccer.  Since I'm trying to consolidate as I'm catching up to posting, I'm just lumping a bunch of shots from different games together, but to sum up the season, the girls did well in their league standings, made it to the semi-finals of state cup, played in several showcases, and finished with the ECNL-RL final four (made it to the finals but the final game got canceled due to bad weather, so they were named co-champions of the Virginia region along with a Richmond team).  They're a hard working, nice group of girls, and we enjoy watching them play and watching them grow as a team.

Halloween 2023

 While Halloween has definitely changed from the days when the girls were young, it's still a fun day and something they still look forward to as teenagers.  Lucky for them, school was off on Halloween (teacher workday), so that was a bit of a bonus.  Lyla was planning to go out and collect candy, and Nina and her friends were planning to hand out the candy at our house, but regardless of the plans, they all wanted to go back to the days of the nostalgic Halloween party foods.  This wasn't even all of the Halloween food they had, but suffice to say, it was a pretty epic throwback of some of their old favorite party foods from the past.

Lyla and Bobby headed out to collect candy and got quite a bit while the rest of us stayed behind at the firepit in the driveway to hand out candy.  I love still having these memories with the fam. as the girls get older!

  

Update

 Well, after a long time trying to figure out a problem to my blog issue, I have a solution that's not really a solution.  In the past year, Google has stopped supporting the site that I used to create and compose my blog posts.  As a result, after I would create posts, the pictures would disappear.  Blogger's basic ability to post blog posts with photos isn't great (which is why I was using a third party site to create blogs), however it's the only way Google will allow photos to stay without disappearing.  So, things are a bit more cumbersome using this current system, I don't have much freedom to be creative with my blog layout or photo layouts, and my pictures aren't uploading as crisp and sharp as they are actually, but if I want to continue to log my memories here, this is what I've got to work with.  So, if you're a friend or family member who likes to keep up with us here, I'll be doing my best to catch up some posts from the recent past, and eventually (maybe) go back and try to repair the posts with the missing photos, but if things look a bit more basic than they used to, sadly that's kind of the way things are at the moment with this current posting situation, but thanks for checking back in!

A Trip to the Zoo

 In the girls' lifetimes, we've been to the National Zoo quite a few times.  I took them when they were babies and toddlers, we went back most summers when they were kids, and we went on field trips.  The zoo is always fun, but since they've gotten older we haven't been as much.  However, this past October we went back to say a final farewell to the pandas who would be permanently moving back to China come December.  

Despite having gone handfuls of times in the past, it dawned on me this latest trip that, while I probably "survived" the trips when they were little (as was the rite of passage of most young moms), this trip as an older mom with them as teenagers was so easy and enjoyable.  I wasn't worried about losing anyone, there was no one that needed carrying or pushed in a stroller, there was no crying, everyone could use the bathroom by themselves, and I could leave all the snacks in the car.  There was a bit of nostalgia for me as this is probably the end of our "zoo era" but we all definitely enjoyed a beautiful fall day in the city.