Wednesday, December 26, 2007

A Thrilling Christmas!

Yay for Christmas!
This past week David and I traveled to Chapel Hill, aka the thrill, to visit with the Horrance/Gary clan for Christmas.

Once we got into town we picked up my bro Donovan, grabbed some food at Armadillo, and headed to a UNC Basketball game. I forgot to take any pictures at the game...

so this shot of my new boyfriend is courtesy of tarheelblue.com. Go Heels! Tyler Hansborough played awesome and helped our boys continue their undefeated streak by cruising past UC Santa Barbara.


After the game, and some last minute shopping, we had dinner over at my Nani's with some of my relatives that were in town. Here are David and Donovan discussing world politics.


The entire weekend/week was filled with lots of amazing food. First up, shrimp curry! My Nani made some delicious curry that was very spicy. Unfortunately, David is allergic to shrimp, but Nani made some special chicken curry just for him :) !

Here are Aunt Chantal (my dad's sister, whom we like to call Chauntie) and Bruce (her husband) enjoying spending time at the Nani's.

Wait a second, where did this picture of a hot rocker come from? Oh yeah! It's me :). After dinner with the family it was time to visit with some of my friends from high school. We were pretty tame most of the weekend and enjoyed playing guitar hero at my house.

Josh and Emily aren't so sure about my guitar hero skills.


Good thing Sarah was there to show us how it is done. Do you notice David sleeping on the couch behind her? Poor thing. We kept him up way past his bedtime every night! He is going to be a mess at work on Thursday.


Here is Hadley pretending to play, while Josh pushes the buttons for her.
Look at those acting skills!

Sunday night consisted of a low key dinner at my rents house. We ate mulligatawny, a curried Indian soup. I was feeling a sicky, so I only got to eat a little bit :(.

Ta Dah! The Nani! Always watching...

Twas the night before Christmas and Michelle came home! Yay! She only had a day off from Stompadu, so she came home for Christmas even though it was for less than 48 hours. While she was here Michelle taught us a STOMP routine. Here is Michelle helping the boys practice. David needed a little more help than most :).


Ahhhh, Christmas morning. WAKE UP SLEEPY HEADS! Because we are all a little older now, and therefore more sleep deprived, Christmas at our house always starts a little late.

But I was up first, so I took pictures of all the presents.


First order of business, opening the stockings! My mom did all the stockings again this year. In the past, David and I have done stockings for each other, but this year we decided to spend a little more on presents, so stockings were out of the question! Thanks to my loverly mother we still had wonderful surprises in our stockings.

And since it is Christmas....time to give my mom a break! That's right dad and donz, your turn to do the dishes! We didn't even have to ask, they simply volunteered (despite Donovan's angry look, he did sign up for this).

Noon already? Must be time for presents! Here is a beautiful scarf I knitted myself for my grandmother. I had been working on it since March, and it wasn't quite as long as I hoped, but it still works as a scarf. The funny part was when my Nani opened it and asked me, "What is it?". Yikes is it that bad?

Here I am displaying my favorite gift from David, a new corduroy jacket! Yay! Thanks babe. And Donovan is sporting his new pj pants we picked out for him.

This gift was one that I was most excited about giving. I got my sister and David season salt from Bojangles! They both love the seasoning that comes on the fries at Bojangles, so I got them each a pack of season salt so they can make their own Bo fries at home.


Every year my mom makes her famous Pavlova cake, other wise know as a baked meringue with whip cream and fruit. Delicious!

Here is do do head eating the left over pavlova cake off of a knife. Man that stuff is good.


Where is my mom through out all of the festivities? Always in the kitchen! She worked so hard, non-stop to make some delicious meals possible. Yummy Lamb dinner, breakfast burritos, and ham with sweet potato casserole and corn bread pudding! You do too much mom! But we do appreciate it! In fact, after spending last Christmas with the Harris' in Florida, I had forgotten how hectic and chaotic our Christmas can be. I needed a whole day to recover after I got back home. Or as some like to say, I needed a vacation from my vacation!

It was so much fun to spend time with our relatives. Here are Chauntie and Kenny representing the Deez side of the family.

And here are the Garys, my mom's brother Mark, and his daughter Linda. And the best Christmas surprise ever? My cousin Linda is pregnant! Yay! We are so excited for her. Here we are looking at her ultrasound pictures.


Here is the proud Gary family, Uncle Mike, husband Michael Adams, Uncle Mark, and preggy Linda, who is barely showing.



Ah, and one of the funniest parts of the whole weekend was what my dad wanted for Christmas. After a musical Sunday school lesson, he determined that the only gift he wanted was my mom to play Handel's Messiah every time he walked in the house. Here he is enjoying his music at full volume. It was hilarious.

Man Christmas went by so fast! We had a great time visiting with friends and family and got way too many good presents. Thanks everyone! Let's all do this again next year shall we?


Monday, December 10, 2007

Christmas Time is Here!

It's Christmas time! I bet you are wondering...what happened to Thanksgiving? Did I miss a post David or Natalie put up about their trip to Florida for Thanksgiving? No, no. David was in charge of the Thanksgiving post, so my guess is that by this point, it ain't happening!


This past weekend David and I finally put the finishing touches on our Christmas decorations. It feels great to have everything up, especially since we were feeling the neighborhood pressure when we arrived home from Thanksgiving to find our entire neighborhood completely decked out. It just took us a while to find the time to get things going. But now you can enjoy the fruits of our labor without even visiting out house!



My friend Andrea had this Christmas Quiz up on her blog and it made me laugh so I thought I would do it too. This quiz will give you all kinds of insights about my personality just by learning how I decorate during the holidays. Enjoy!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both! If it can't be wrapped, it must go in a bag. Although I am notorious for wrapping odd shaped gifts that should have been bagged.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Real! I love the smell of a real Christmas tree in our home.

3. When do you put up the tree? I have a rule that the tree cannot go up until it is December. Once November is over, anytime is fair game.




4. When do you take the tree down? Usually the first weekend in January.

5. Do you like eggnog? No. It takes like crap.


6. Favorite gift received as a child? Microphone, guitar, and jumpsuit. It was a karaoke set for kids. I totally rocked that gift. There are also embarrassing pictures somewhere...

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, we just bought our first one this year! David doesn't like the people that came in our set, but loves the Creche. As soon as we can find some suitable wooden figures we will replace them!




8. Hardest person to buy for? My sister Michelle. Her taste is all over the place and I never know what she will like.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My brother Donovan. He is very good about tell me exactly what he wants :). Thanks Deez!

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail! Who doesn't love getting something in the mail besides a bill? This is the only time of year I look forward to getting the mail.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Tissues. No seriously. One time a relative who will remain nameless wrapped up tissues and gave them to me.

12. Favorite Christmas movie? Love Actually. This movie makes me melt and cry every time I watch it. I know it is not a traditional Christmas movie, but I am not very fond of those old school cartoons and claymation. Alright I also like Charlie Brown's Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Sometime in November.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not that I can think of. . .

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Breakfast burritos! After we open presents on Christmas day we make breakfast burritos which consist of tortillas, salsa, eggs, bacon, potatoes with sausage and onion, cheese, black olives, sour cream, and hot sauce. Yummy. I can't wait!

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear lights inside and out!



17. Favorite Christmas song? Mary Did You Know? sung by Clay Aiken. (This is David's favorite too :)).

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel. Until we have children of our own we take turns doing Christmas with our families in Chapel Hill and Florida.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? On Dasher, On Dancer, On Comet, and Vixen, On Donner, On Prancer, On Cupid and Blitzen. Oh yeah and Rudolph.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Morning. Usually around 10 am.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The Christmas music on the radio. Well, you get tired of it by the time Christmas rolls around because it has been playing since before Thanksgiving!

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Red and Silver!

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Baa Baa Lamb. With yummy spinach and mushroom stuffing.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? A baby. Just kidding David :). I would love to sleep in and hang out with family and friends. I have a feeling I will get to do all of those things!