Christmas Day Again and Again and Again

Some of you know what I mean about Christmas Day again and again. With all the family and traveling, it seemed like Christmas Day continued for several days.

We want to send a very special Merry Christmas out to Chris stationed in Djibouti Africa this Holiday season. We missed you greatly and wish you the best. Hurry Home!

We had Christmas Dinner at Angela's home this year. She did a great job. thank you for opening your home Angela and Mike!

Alyssa showed everyone the talent she had with the hula hoops.

The Thielemanns'

A Scary Bunch

Starting Trouble

Hanging out


Kendra and Terri

Hannah and Diva

Having almost way to much fun!

Christmas Morning

Christmas is here!!! Oh wait, I am a couple of days late! LOL

Anyway, Christmas was great as always. Lots of family and lots of fun. We got to bed Christmas Eve about 12:30am Hannah went to bed early but Patrick stayed up. Everything was wrapped early for a change so we were just sitting up. Santa came early and JoAnna and I were up at 6:30. Hannah woke up at 6:45 and attacked her stocking.

The first thing we had to do was put the baby Jesus in the manger. This was Hannah's job this year.




Maryanna and Elizabeth arrived at 7:00am. But were is Patrick you might ask? Her was still in bed. When Elisabeth went to go wake him up he mumbled that they weren't supposed to be there until 10:00.










Wii want to play !!

Patrick and Hannah open games for the Wii.




Hannah has great form for bowling!







We had coffee cake and fruit to give us a boost of energy to open gifts and to tide us over until the family lunch at Angela's house in Pembroke.

Diva managed to eat just enough paper to get a little sick. She is going to be one sad little puppy when everyone has to go back to school. She is loving the attention and the cuddling daily.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve went well and was quiet. We went to church and the choirs sung. (Video Below 1 song broken into two parts) We sang Carry The Light. It was a combination of the children's choir and the adult choir. The service was at 7:00pm and lasted until 9:00pm with the whole church filing out to the courtyard with candles singing silent night. After the service the church has a tradition of caroling in the neighborhood around it as a gift to those in the area. We didn't go and the kids were disappointed but we plan to next year.

Patrick is on the far right in a blue shirt and Hannah is on the left in front with a white shirt on.

Christmas Break

Well Hannah is out of school now until after the holidays. Patrick has to go until Wednesday at noon. I have choir practice Wednesday evening and Patrick is going to come and practice with the kids choir to sing on Christmas eve. JoAnna is planning on joining the hand bell choir after the first of the year.
Santa has arranged to have an elf stop by this Friday to hook up a gift for JoAnna. The fireplace will become active. It has cooled off here and we are actually supposed to get freezing temperatures tonight.
In case anyone is wondering, it is the weather services description of freezing (32 degrees) not southern Georgia's description (60's) LOL.

We will keep you all updated on the happenings here.

Ready for Christmas

Well the holiday season is upon us and the Anderson's decided to get in the spirit this year since we are staying home! Yesterday it warmed up enough to melt all the snow we had as you can see by the wet driveway. We had suffered a cold snap so we have had to really bundle up to stay comfortable.

In all actuality, The water is from washing the cars when I got home to get the window writing off the van from the state meet. It was in the frigid 80s yesterday so we were in shorts washing the vehicles at 6:00pm.


We have the Manger that has been in JoAnna's Family for generations.

Our lighthouse we received last year and even though it stays out all year up on the ledge, is a highlight for the kids each day. It is an advent calender with drawers for different things.

We finally figured out what to do with all the artwork that gets collected over the years from school projects. (woo hoo 3M) With the aid of those cool little stick on pull off hooks, everything gets hung for everyone to see.

We haven't gotten the candle windmill to work yet but that is Patrick and Eric's mission this year.

Patrick topped the tree with the angel this year. Hannah will put the baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas. Then we will switch next year. We got a 9ft tree this year and it fit well in the room. We had to rearrange the room but it really opened it up.

The stockings are hung be the fireplace with care. I know of one Santa wish is to get it hooked up and running. Though we have been her 3 years now, and I keep saying when it gets cold. Well if it gets cold here you have to do it that day or it won't be cold the next. LOL

Here is a short video clip of the train that runs around the tree. Oma Sharp got it for us years ago and we set it up and run it as often as possible. Diva has a real problem with it. At one point Patrick's Clone troopers attempted to capture it from the alliance to no avail.

Sorry for how dark the video is.

State Meet

2007 Georgia State Meet

Buford Georgia

Hannah Scored her personnel best for the season. She nailed her round off Back handspring with straight elbows. Although she did not place in the top 11, she did her best and was happy.

All the teams walk in in the beginning and then go to their first event.

Floor

Vault

Bars

Beam

Christmas Concert

Hannah's Christmas Concert.

Hannah's grade had it's Christmas concert this past week. The played the recorder and sang several songs. It was fun enjoyable. I added a video clip for each song so they aren't very long.

New Arrival

Congratulations!!!!
Marcotte and Caroline

On the birth of Ethan. We are glad everyone is doing well and we are all excited about having a new niece/nephew/cousin.

Hannah was really excited and made sure everyone around knew that she had a new cousin.

Ethan 7lbs 13oz

Thanksgiving

Well we have returned from Thanksgiving dinner at Jody and Beth's house in North Carolina. We had about 18 people there so there was lots of food and family. Family from Maryland came down and others from Savannah and Pembroke went up.


There were Man point competitions and unfortunately Eric being the only adult male attending since Chris, Darcy's Husband was deployed didn't win all of them.

Terry, Darcy and Aaron. Jeanne and Kendra.

Lillie Jody, Alyssa JoAnna and Diva.

Elizabeth and Jean


Anthony Patrick

Hannah and Alyssa

Alyssa, Hanna, Aaron, Anthony

Blaze, Patrick

A tradition that we have developed is that the day after Thanksgiving we all go to Frankie's Fun Park for laser tag and go kart racing.

Sheala and Hannah

Alyssa

Another event was attending a Hurricanes Game. The Hurricanes as Raleigh's NHL Ice Hockey team. We had seats near the top but were still good because we could see everything. Sue one of our friends was working the event and was able to get us priority seats down near the ice. Boy when you get down where the very dedicated fans are, the whole game takes on a new dynamic.



Hannah, Sue, Alyssa

Thank you so much Sue, We love You.

Hannah's first time driving solo on the track. She met the height requirement this year and was very nervous. I followed her out of the gate and by the first half a lap, she floored it and her dad couldn't keep up.

Way to go Hannah!

Alyssa, Aaron and Blaze had the whole track to themselves.

Hannah and Alyssa had a great time with the camera. They created a web show over the weekend and had a lot of fun doing it.

Vidalia Meet

Hannah had an OK Meet in Vidalia. She did her best for the day which is all we ask and hope for. She did get her round off back handspring so it was a good day. Maryanna and Elizabeth were able to attend the cheering section was much bigger.

Floor

Vault

Beam

Sabrina had the spirit again with the green Hair!

Red Belt Testing

Red Belt Testing!
Patrick received his Red belt this weekend.


Below are some short clips from the testing.


The first one is DEMO Team.
They are performing for the younger kids (Tiny Tigers) that are testing. this lets them see what the older kids are able to do. You have to be invited to the team so not everyone get to do it.

This is board breaking. It has the WOW factor for the little kids.

Sparring is an event that they test on and that Patrick excels in. He got third at State Regional in Sparring. the testing is supposed to be no contact but not everyone is perfect.

Here he is getting his belt. He has two more testings until Black Belt so about 4 months if all goes well! Keep up the good work Patrick!!!