Christmas Break

Ok, so here's the story of our Christmas stand-down (Christmas break for you non-Navy folk):

We flew in on Christmas Adam (Heather's term...Adam came before Eve... Dec. 23)

We went to mass with my family on Christmas Eve - and Bella successfully sat (stood, crawled...) through her first entire church service - and it was MASS!!

Here's Neil and I Christmas Eve Night at St. Mark's:

Here's my Dad and Bella...Dad is in a choir robe for those wondering, and he's pointing to the Nativity scene...showing Bella Baby Jesus.

This is my cousin Jenn and her daughter Kaylee. Kaylee is almost 5 months now...and has grown a lot since the last time her picture was posted here (see Sept. 08). Beautiful Girls.

So we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family, then drove to Dry Prong, LA (Prospect Community actually...) the day after Christmas to spend time with Neil's Family. We also got to see some long-time friends we haven't seen in a while.

This is Maryann. Awesome Girl. College Best Friend. Bridesmaid in our wedding. We talk and it's like time and distance never happened. She still challenges me in my walk just as much as she did when we saw each other all the time. She's the new youth minister at First United Methodist in Pineville. Isn't she beautiful??

This is Bella's new friend, Kaitlyn. Daughter of Brent and Michelle Sawyer. Brent was a groomsman in our wedding. Kaitlyn Just celebrated her first Birthday - Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

On our way back to Dallas from Louisiana, we had to stop in Tyler, TX for som Bodacious BBQ. Just. Plain. Texas. Good. YUM!!! After we ate, we spent some time playing around outside the resturaunt to get some blood flowing...and to keep Bella from feeling so trapped.

When we got back to Texas, we spent a couple more days with my family. One of those days was spent going to Glenn Rose and Granbury, TX. There is a nuclear power plant in Glenn Rose, and we wanted to check out the town to see if it was a place where we may want to live. It's seriously perfect! Granbury is about 20 min. from the plant. It has one small, cute downtown square area.

Here we are at an ice cream shop that Dad said he and Mom used to take us girls to every time we passed through Granbury. We had RootBeer floats. Bella's first RootBeer float experience, and obviously...it was a good one!

other than the downtown area, it has one street that has tons of resources - Walmart, clothes stores, another grocery store, a bookstore, etc. But that's it! The rest of the place is country...and I can't forget to mention the absolutely beautiful LAKE in the middle of the town. seriously beautiful. So...country for Neil...resources for me...cute downtown...an hour away from my parent's house. About 30 min. SW of the westernmost part of Ft. Worth...we're trying not to get too excited about it this early...but it's hard...

This is Dad and Bella at a playground we "happened upon" in Glen Rose... Dinosaur Valley Park is in Glen Rose, so this playground was completely Dinosaur themed. kinda cute.

We got back to Georgia on Jan 2. and it's been kinda crazy since then.... but, until next time...