Christmas holiday

We left Friday morning, the 22nd at about 7:15 am and arrived in Tallahassee about 5:30 pm, I think. The drive was uneventful for the most part. There was definitely a lot of cars and RVs on the road and the occasional rain shower. Matt was bouncing off the walls when we got there and wanted his pictured taken while jumping around. Notice the lovely new blue walls in my bedroom. I had always had boring white walls, but now they are a lovely bright blue! We went to a yummy new pizza place in town for supper, then home for bed. Saturday was an eventful day. First Mary Lee and I threw a bridal shower for Lauren, an old high school friend at the mexican restaurant. It was lovely and everyone had a nice time. Lauren of course got some fun presents and we all got to see some folks we hadn't seen in a while. At some point during the weekend, our Christmas tree finally got decorated by my sister, Catherine. It was decorated differently than in past years. This year it was red and white lights with gold bows and ornaments made by my dad's grandmother. Here are some of the lovely ornaments. Saturday night, Matt and I went to a reunion party hosted by a friend from high school. It was a mini-reunion with just about 20 or 30 people, not our entire class of 400 and some. It was nice to see some people who we don't normally see. Here is a picture of Katie, Jennifer, me, and Ryan. Ryan makes video games, most recently the Cars video game! We had a lovely dinner on Sunday night made by Judy and Bob. We had lamb and ham and a whole bunch of yummy sides and desserts. Normally our family makes the Christmas Eve meal and the Doyles make the Christmas Day meal, but this year we switched. It was yummy and wonderful to spend another holiday with them. On Christmas Day we had stone crabs and beef tenderloin along with sides and desserts. YUM, YUM, YUM. Another tradition we have is singing the 12 days of Christmas in groups. Judy is the director and everyone else is assigned a group. This year my group was me, Matt, and Katie. Here is a picture of Judy directing us and one of Caroline, Susie, and Josh acting out one of their days. Matt made up a new game over the Christmas week, called Show Me. Basically Matt shouts out something, ranging from "show me angry" to "show me newborn baby", etc and the individual participating has to show whatever it is using only their face. We played randomly throughout the week, but on Christmas Day night we had a little competition. Katie was the trained actress, Catherine the girl who had taken a few classes, and Caroline the natural. It was great fun and everyone enjoyed it. In the end we were supposed to compare all the pictures and see who did the best job, but instead we just took pictures and laughed, which was just as good to me. Tuesday we went shopping and hung around the house. Wednesday we moved some stuff from Grandma's house to my parent's house, and helped Mom get ready for her sale. We also went to see Paban's mom and dad, I think, or maybe that was Tuesday. Who knows. Thursday morning we left for Tampa for Katie's surgery. We went out to dinner with the Doyles to celebrate Josh and Katie's birthday (which was the following day) and then hung out and watched The Office on DVD. Friday was Katie's surgery, so we spent the majority of the day in the hospital. Her surgery itself went well, they removed the tumor and she recovered just fine, but the tumor was cancerous and she begins chemo tomorrow (Friday). After visiting Katie in the ICU we drove back to Tallahasssee for the night. Then we headed back to Durham on Saturday around noon. If everyone could please keep Katie in their thoughts and prayers I would really appreciate it.