Sightseeing and Costume Changes

After our very late (or very early) arrival, the girls went off to a bridal luncheon

and the boys went to visit a Battleship.

Not to be left out, when the luncheon was over Phoebe, Sophie, Kate and I went to the Battleship too, at least the exterior.

We saw alligator tracks, but no actual alligators. I'm very okay with that.

Here's a closer look.

Then we walked through the quaint downtown area near our hotel. We found a bookstore!

Then we got all fancy and went to the rehearsal dinner where sweet things were said about Bryan's brother Paul and Paul's fiancé. We ate some food too.

Fun (and some mild exhaustion) was had by all.

One Last Time

We had a whirlwind trip down to North Carolina last week for Bryan's brother Paul's wedding! It was wonderful to see family that we haven't seen in ages and the wedding was lovely. Also, after nearly twenty hours in the car for the roundtrip, we're all still exhausted. Hopefully I'll get a bunch of pictures up soon of the adventure. 

But for today, I'll share this picture of Cooper's last track meet of high school. We delayed leaving for the wedding until after he had finished his race on Wednesday afternoon. That means we arrived at our hotel at 5:00 in the morning on Thursday, with the first wedding activity (the rehearsal) starting at 9:00 that morning (but only for Bryan and Topher since they participated in the wedding).

Hopefully we were all coherent that day.

For his final event, Cooper ran the 3200M, the two-mile run. He finished sixth and ran a 10:44. It's amazing how much he improved since starting just over a year ago.

On the Eve

After our Christmas Eve soup and bread, and opening Christmas pajamas, we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol. They all started out on furniture but ended up on the floor by the end.

Topher asked if we could put out milk and cookies "for Mom and Dad." We did, and he then declared it a new tradition he had started.

We finally chased all the kids to bed and got to work setting out the stockings. Do you notice an extra one up there? Bryan's brother Paul joined us for Christmas this year. We loved having him visit and made sure he had a stocking as well.

Even doing our four gift rule (want, need, wear, read, not including gifts from siblings and grandparents) the tree was full. Gifts for eight people take up a lot of space.

We set out the stocking supplies and were in bed around 1 o'clock in the morning. Thank goodness our kids have never been the type to wake up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning. Santa and Mrs. Clause needed a solid night of sleep.