Christmas 2008

I have finally had time to review my photos from Christmas. I was going to pick my favorite to post but I couldn't stop with just a few favorites. Instead I tried dividing them up based on theme and then you can decide to stop reading now or go forge ahead and look at the slide shows.

But before that, just a quick update to let you know we are all well. Our first week back was hectic but we made it. JT got his kinder report card and he is right on track. Zachy got back to school and had the special surprise of getting to have his dad as a subsitute teacher for a day.

Alrighty, here are lots of photos for your enjoyment.

Christmas
These photos are mainly from Christmas morning. As you can see Zach was overly excited about getting lots of Star Wars stuff. one of my favorite is Zachy comparing the back of the package.



Food
It is no surprise that part of the reason Rick and I run is because we like to eat. And one of the reasons we really love visiting Pete and Judes is the phenomenal food Pete makes; we can't explain it but everything just tastes better at Pete's house. Ok, the Buche Noel wasn't made by anyone in the family but it was made by a local chocolatier and it was fabulous.



Zoo
After Christmas we took Grandpa Pete to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro. This is probably one of my favorite zoos because of all the space the animals have. The elephants have this incredible open field; it almost feels like you are out on safari. I wish I had a shot from the overlook of the elephant area but with a big zoo comes lots of walking and we were definitely getting tired. We had a fabulous time though and both boys were troopers. My favorite, which is obvious from this slide show was the Aviary. We also really liked the gorillas mainly because when we showed up the handlers had just arrived to feed them. The handlers basically climb up on the outside of the wall and toss vegetables over. The largest gorilla (seen in photos with Zachy) picked up a muddy carrot and walked over to where the handler was, dropped his carrot, and waited for the handler to toss his clean ones. He would catch the carrot, stick it in his mouth, and then stick his hand out for another. JT decided that the gorilla would make a great addition to his t-ball team.



Children's Museum
This is the final slide show. We all took a trip in to Charlotte to the Discovery Center. Their exhibit was "The Circus" which I was honestly very skeptical of. It actually turned out to be loads of fun. The highlight was JT waiting in line for over 30 minutes to get his chance to walk the tight-rope. The rope was about 9 feet off the ground. JT did a phenomenal job and the crowd cheered. He is definitely keeping tightrope walking on his list in case he flunks out of kinder. You can tell from the photos that the next best part was the dress up area. The weirdest item was the collection of fake poop. There were about 6 samples and you had to guess whose poop it was and then read about the poop and the animal that created it. Zach of course thought the poop was fascinating. There are a couple of photos at the end from our walk in Charlotte after the museum. The day before was the bowl game and they had decorated the statues with jerseys (no real clue why I only took one of West Virginia).



One final note, I realize there are not many photos of Grandpa Pete and no photos of Nana Juju or Nanny Sue. I do have a few but I am saving them for something a little later.