It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...Oh wait...

Well I figured it was about time to get some Christmas pictures up here. As always...we had many celebrations. Hope your Christmas was wonderful like ours :)

Decorating the Tree

Meeting Santa at the Allred's

Tiller Christmas

Johnson Christmas in Florence

Stone Christmas

I'm turning into my mother! :)

Caswell Christmas

Christmas in January

Well I think Grant got enough Christmas for one year. It was so much fun to see him getting excited about Christmas. Last year he was too little to really understand. This year he learned a new word..."present!"

Geocaching Adventures

If you have never tried geocaching, it is definitely something you should try! Jordan, Elizabeth, and Henry are here from Ohio, and we decided to take a group geocaching adventure. If you have never even heard of it, here is a brief explanation: You look up locations where geocaches are hidden. Then you use a GPS to help you find it. When you find it there is usually something in there that you can take as a souvenir, and you are supposed to leave something of your own. There is also a piece of paper in it that everyone who finds it is supposed to sign. Doing it in the rain is NOT part of the procedure...but that's what we did! The rain in Florence has been non-stop, and we were all getting tired of staying in the house. So we bundled up (even the kids) and set out on our trek.

Grant is ready to explore!

Yes, it was raining hard!

Jordan and Henry

The first one we found was hidden in a fake sprinkler head.

We are so proud of ourselves! The owner of the house behind us thought our large group was so funny (out in the rain) that he took a picture of us from his window.

Off to find the second one

This one was in a film-like canister tied to a tree.

It had a few treasures in it.

Mom and Elizabeth fill out our information on the paper.

Our second successful geocache! Next time we'll do it when it isn't raining!

And...We're Back!

Well...after my last posting, no one responded with ideas of what I could write about. I didn't purposefully mean to not write for a while after that, it just happened. But finally my friend, Rachel, who is an English teacher, sent me a huge list of topics! I won't be writing every day, but maybe once a week. I am also going to try and keep more up to date with our family adventures while I do the topic writing. Thanks Rachel for all the ideas! This will be fun :)

The first topic from Rachel is A Memorable Wedding or Funeral. I haven't been to many funerals, thankfully, and I don't really want to recall the ones I have been to. But weddings...that is right up my alley. Although I have to admit, once I got married, my fascination with weddings has been severely decreased. I used to dream about weddings all the time. I was always coming up with ideas for my own wedding some day in the future. I used to buy wedding magazines just because I liked to look at them. I loved going to weddings. Even if I didn't know the people very well, I still enjoyed going. There was one wedding in particular though that was especially memorable. It was a fall wedding. I had never been to a fall wedding, or even really thought about one, but I am sure if I had thought about one I would have thought that it would not be a pretty one. Orange for a wedding color?! Pumpkin decorations?! No thanks! This fall wedding though was beautiful! It made me seriously reconsider my visions of a spring or summer wedding. There were small twinkle lights everywhere with tons of candles. They did have a carved pumpkin display, but it was very tastefully done. This wedding happened before I even thought about having a digital camera, so I don't have any pictures of it. I looked up some fall weddings online though, and found some pictures to give you an idea of how beautiful a fall wedding can be. The wedding I went to certainly made an impression on me. I didn't end up having a fall wedding myself, due to the perfect timing of a summer wedding for a teacher, but it would have been my second choice.

I also found this when I searched for fall weddings...SO SCARY!!! Definitely NOT the kind of fall wedding I would enjoy...maybe memorable though...

P.S. I know that some of you who read my blog actually had a fall wedding...send me some pictures and I would be glad to put them on here in addition to these people's that I don't even know!

Drum Roll Please...

It's the moment you have all been waiting for (I just know it!)...the final blog in my 30 Days of Blogging. You all probably thought that I forgot this last one. But let me tell you, things have been a bit crazy around here. What with the flu hitting all of us, four Christmas celebrations, two New Year's celebrations, and finding out that my grandma fell, had to have surgery, and is spending some time in the hospital, I've had many other things to think about. But here it is...finally!

Day 30: A Picture

Yep, that's it...pretty easy. This was on the New Years Day hike we took yesterday. Just the three of us went out to Jacksonville to explore the woodland trails. Grant had a great time hiking and stomping in the mud puddles. He was a great navigator :)

So...that's the end of my 30 days. It took a little longer than 30 days, but at least I finished. I had a lot of fun doing it, and some of you have told me how much you enjoy following along. I had an idea...not sure if I'll do it yet though. I was thinking of continuing blogging in this type of way...not just updates of what our family is doing, but thoughts from me also. I wouldn't do it as often as every day, but it would be as often as I have time. The only problem is that I don't have the time or capacity to think of interesting topics. That's where you come in! In the comment section at the bottom of this post, give me a list of ideas you would like me to blog about. I will blog the lists you give me, and some of my own ideas, until they run out. Maybe some of you could find a way to include Paul in some of these posts too :)

I realized that I have really slacked on keeping up with what our family has done this past month. What a busy month! I will have to catch you up in the next few posts. Hope you all have a wonderful beginning to a new year!