Holiday Festivities, 2011 | Leading up to Christmas (Part One)

Finally getting our month of December on the blog.  I decided to do short, little snip-its of the events leading up to Christmas....Enjoy!!

Saturday, December 3

Always one of our favorite things to do, we headed to Scott's Tree Lot (we've been loyal for about 10 years now) to pick out our tree the morning of December 3rd.  Scott's always has the most beautiful trees, so it's never hard to find the perfect one.  Danny and I noticed that the tree crop was really nice this year.  Emerson is always a big help and loves to run around pointing our trees to her dad, then he makes sure they are tall or short enough to fit in our living room.  We never get away without a "ride" on the sleigh and a candy cane treat!!

The winning tree!!

Tuesday, December 13th

We were lucky enough to get a holiday performance from Emerson's dance class again this year.  Unfortunately I was out-of-town for work this year and not able to attend the performance.  Danny did a great job getting the brief show on film and thanks to Aurora's mom for getting some great shots of the girls before and during the performance.  You can tell the girls have improved since last year and really love dance class!!

L to R, top to bottom: Emerson, Morgan, Aurora and Lauren.....all ready for the show!!

Video

This is the first video I've made using iMovie (yay!!).  Since it's HD, you may have to let it buffer a few minutes, so it doesn't stop every two seconds!!

Holiday Dance Performance 2011 from Brooke Dever on Vimeo.

Thursday, December 15

Our friends, the Gwaltneys, were nice enough to invite Danny and Emerson to CHCC for dinner with Santa.  Danny took the camera along and got a few shots.  I hate I missed the event, but so glad it gave Danny something to do with Emerson to kill some time and take-up another mommy-less evening. At this point we still hadn't seen Santa, so Emerson was so excited to see him at dinner.  According to Emerson, this was the "real" Santa and not just one of his helpers!!  Thanks again for the invite, Gwaltneys....I think Danny and Emerson had a great time!

Cookie decorating skills!

Caroline and Santa

Emerson and Santa

Thanksgiving Adventures | Part Three

I've taken a hiatus from blogging...not sure why???  January hasn't been really busy, but I just haven't felt like blogging much lately.  I do know that I need to get my December posts up before January ends, so I guess I better get to it.  I'll start with the end of our Thanksgiving adventures (that I never finished)...

Sunday, November 28th

Sunday was a somewhat lazy day in the house, no golf and no shopping.  I was pretty happy that I got a few good shots of the sunrise that morning.  Once Emerson got up, we headed to the beach (in her pajamas) to make sure her sunflower was still in tact.  Then Danny, Emerson, Mimi, and I headed back out for another walk/run 5K of our own.  My plan after the 5K was to get get a picture of the family on the beach for our Christmas card.  You may remember last year's card was also taken on the beach.  So after lunch, we all took showers and put on some nicer clothing and headed to my favorite pier for a mini (600+ pictures) photography session!!  (I'll do a separate post on that later!)  Since Emerson did such a great job at our shoot, we went back to the house, changed and then headed to the playground.  She always loves the playground at the beach and we have to go each time we are down.  The day ended with an impromptu dance party.  I'm not sure who had more fun, Emerson or Edward?  I'm also not sure who wore the other one out more!!  The two of them danced and danced and danced....and had so much fun!  It was a great ending to our trip on the Dever's last night there.

Beautiful sunrise!!

Nothing better than pajamas on the beach!!

Some, well-deserved, playground time!!

Dance party!!  

Birdie getting in on the dancing action!!

Monday, November 29th

Monday morning I woke up early and decided to take some pictures of the sunrise.  I hadn't really gotten any great shots of the early morning, and since I was wide awake, I thought I would take full advantage of the quiet house and peaceful morning!!  

It was packing day, and somehow the guys managed to play golf.  Danny packed all of his stuff before leaving for golf, but I still had to pack mine and Emerson's.  My mom was nice enough to take Emerson to grab lunch and then go to the park for a picnic.  Once they got back, they headed to the beach while I finished up packing.  While they were out there, they noticed a pelican that Alice and Edward had mentioned the night before.  It appeared to be injured.  When I went out to check on them I saw the pelican, too.  I decided to call the wildlife rescue to find out if someone could come help him out.  After several phone calls trying to find the right person, I finally got through to someone who could help.  While we waited for the rescue attempt to take place, we ended up with a swarm of angry seagulls around us that really wanted Emerson's snack.  They eventually came out and tried to help the pelican, but it flew away.  Our excitement was short-lived, we just hope the pelican was okay.  When we got back to our towel on the beach, the pelicans were everywhere and wanted more treats.  Mimi and Emerson had a great time feeding the seagulls, which I am sure they were not supposed to be doing.  Oh well, at least the seagulls were fat and happy by the end.  

Rescuing the Pelican!!

Feeding the seagulls...

As always, we had a wonderful time at the beach.  The weather was perfect, the time with family was even better.  I hope the tradition continues and we can celebrate many more holidays at the beach!!