Family-Away-From-Family

As much as I love living in North Carolina with it's easy access to mountains and beaches, I do miss being near my family back in Texas. Especially when the holidays roll around. We've gone back a few times over Christmas, but we usually end up staying here. This was one of those years that we stayed.

The biggest question about staying is what to do for the holidays. One nice thing abut Charlotte is that many people here are transplants and we have many friends who, like us, have no extended family nearby to visit. We've always had one set of friends or another to celebrate with. This year, we hung out with our other Southern friends.

Two days before Christmas, we spent the afternoon playing games and staying for dinner with the Hines family.

Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with the Hines over at the Jinks house.

Christmas Day, we all met over at the Hines house with another family and some extra teenagers and had a fabulous fun-filled day.

But first, we had presents at our house.


They look so calm here. Actually, it looked more like this.



L loved the Webkinz she got from her sister and they both shrieked with joy over the Webkinz they got from Grandma and Grandad and Aunt Bethany and her family.


The girls both got books in their stockings - a simple Barbie one for L who is learning to read, and Encyclopedia Brown #1 for K, who is already finished and has asked for more.

I just think this one is cute.

When we got to our friends' house,the first thing Tracey and I did was make chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy for lunch. It was a.ma.zing. Everyone stuffed themselves and we took the leftover meat, cut it into bite-sized pieces and served it with the gravy as a snack.

I did mention we're all from the South, right? Except Tracey, who's from upstate New York, but she's an honorary southerner.

The children played.



The grown-ups played.

(Did you know that even if you're wearing a sleeveless white t-shirt and overalls that if you turn your hat backwards, you can look like a skater? Yeah, me neither.)

The grown-ups played with the kids.

(L and Miss Jodi practiced for their debut as almost-Chinese acrobats.)

The children settled down to watch movies.

L used their dog as a pillow. He was very patient.

We had a chocolate fountain.

(I didn't get any pictures. I was too busy dipping.)

We had a fabulous time just hanging out.


And by the end, we all felt like not-so-little Miss Cindy Jae.

Worn flat out.

It was wonderful day spent with our family-away-from-family.