Happy Christmas!

Phew! We survived. Barely, but we all made it.

December 20th we had a small party at our house. Dec 23rd was Poppy's birthday. Dec. 24th was Christmas at Poppy and Gammy's house with all the Smiths. Then Christmas Day was presents in the morning, with Bennie and Vida and Kevin, Theresa and Zoe coming over for standing rib roast with au jus, yorkshire puddings (which did rise this year), green bean almandine and au gratin potatoes.

My favourite present was this (but more on that later)...



Here are some random pictures of the kids. I'll put up some more in an album soon.







This was a wonderful "Travel case" present that Callum worked on in School, and gave to Pennie and me. We loved it!

Happy Birthday, Isabelle!

Finally, the long awaited day arrived! Never before in the history of the world has one girl so eargerly awaited their birthday! Now, finally, the day has came and gone. The torn shreds of wrapping paper are settling like ticker tape after a parade, and Isabelle is well and truly seven years old!



Since her birthday was on a Friday, she had to go to school. I (and Lexie) showed up at about noon with cup cakes. We had lunch with the class, read a story, and I hung around helping Ms. Graham with a few little chores until school let out.



Afterwards, cousin Katie came over for a sleepover. They even went to sleep at some point.

Saturday was the day of her party at Wishes! where they got to dress up as rock stars, sing karoke and have great time.



Afterwards, a bunch of the girts ended up at our house playing for a few more hours.

Overall, it was a fun few days. And Isabelle turned 7!

Opryland, Part III

Part I; Part II

Finally, we get to the final day; Sunday.

Here are all the children looking cute in front of one of the many trees scattered throughout the hotel. I tried to get one for our Christmas card, but the only good ones of all our kids had Zoe in them too:



We headed to the gingerbread-house-making section next:



There was an elf to help them, which was good! Zoe made some gingerbread cookies. Here is the finished house:



Then we went into the Hall of Trees. You can bid on a tree to win the stuff that was hanging on it, and the proceeds go to charity. Quick, only 15 days left to bid! (And no, I did not bid on any Update: I did bid on this one, mainly as Callum wanted the art supplies! I don't expect to win though!). This was my favourite tree, because it had music playing and Lexie dancing (I don't remember which was it actually was though):



The kids like the Madagascar 2 one (go figure)...



After the Trees, Pennie went into the Hall of treasures, which sold Christmas junk and other stuff, I guess, while Lexie rode the train (she does love riding trains!):



The, we had lunch, and drove back the 3 hours to Memphis to pick up Maggie. She appeared to have done OK, but is no better trained now than she was before.

One last picture of Lexie, just because this is my favourite picture right now:

Opryland, Part II

Part I was here.

First, let me say that "Opry" is has a short O and is pronounced "opp-ree". As in "opera", but with an "ee". Not "oh-pree" as in "Oprah". Yeah - I never knew that. Silly American pronounciations ;)

So, first night we had dinner in one of the maybe dozen resturants in the Hotel, followed up with ice cream from the Hagen Daaz store in the Hotel. Did I say yet that this Hotel is huge?



The next morning we left the Hotel, and walked about 10 minutes to the Grand Ole Opry House (remember, sounds like opera). Home of Country Music! Dad would have loved it, but we were not there for music. Oh no - we were there for dancing! The Rockettes infact, in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Lots of leg-kicking action. It was pretty good, with Santa leading the story. Until, at least they got to the Nativity scene tacked on to the end. Oh man, was that dull! It was really disjointed from the rest of the show - no leg-kicking action at all - and really felt as if they had added it just to counter the consumerism of the rest of the show "Hey, look. We really are good Christians! Not just consumers, no sireee!" To be expected, right here in the buckle of the Bible belt. (Click here for the real "reason for the season". Tee hee.)

After the show, we had lunch at the Aquarium restaurant in the Opry Mills Mall [why is everything around here called Opry?] just over the street. Yes - it was a big aquarium with food. Callum loved the Shovelnose guitarfish. But I will give you a picture of him (and Theresa) instead.



Then we headed to see the Grinch in Ice!



Yes - we all wore blue coats. They gave them out when you went in. The temperature inside was a balmy 7 degrees... farenheit. That is -14 Celsius. Brrr. But what do you expect - it was ice! A bunch of (very good) ice sculptures of the Grinch and the Whos. And slides...



[That is Lexie, in case you can't tell!]

Did I say it was cold? Guess who this is:



Because after about 20 min inside, we all looked pretty much the same. Luckily, they had hot chocolate on sale right outside. [Just like Disney, everything landed you in a gift shop].

OK - that was most of Saturday. At night, I sat with the kids in the room and had room service and watched Kung Fu Panda on pay-per-view. Very cute movie (and very expensive PPV).

Sunday we did the hall of trees and made a gingerbread house. See Part III for details!

Thanksgiving in Nashville

Well, Thanksgiving Day itself (Thursday) was spent with Bennie and Vida, and Pete and Kari and their mob. We ate Turkey, and had a good time.

Friday, we dropped Maggie off at PetSmart Hotel, then carried on out to Music City (that's Nashville). We stayed at the Opryland Hotel. According to the guy who brought us room service one night, it is the second biggest hotel in the world... Wikipedia says its just the largest non-casino Hotel in the USA. Regardless, it is huge, and very impressive. And it was all decked out for Christmas, since the Christmas season officially starts here the day after Thanksgiving. There we met Kevin, Theresa and Zoe Boggs. Kevin was a PostDoc with me years ago and Theresa worked with Pennie. Zoe is Callum's age. We have had vacations with them before, and now they live back in Memphis, after a few years in Florida.

Here are the kids in our room:



That night, we wandered around the hotel. Did I say it was HUGE? It has a river in it, with waterfalls...



If I said we did not get lost, I'd be lying. But the kids did find the waterfall.



More later... stay tuned for Part II!

Halloween 2008

bet you all thought I would never put any new pictures up, didn't you?

Happy Crimbo!!!

Happy Christmas everyone!