Christmas Parties Galore...

Christmas came and went like a whirlwind this year! What happened? I'm not sure, but it was a lot of fun! James and I feel so blessed to have so much family located in one central place. It does call for a lot of party hopping, but Christmas is the perfect time of year to be party animals, right? We started off Christmas Eve at my aunt and uncles house; we did a "Lessons and Carols" session with some scripture and carols sung. My little cousin Aleah decided her role would be the angel, and she took this position very seriously. In her mind, angels prance through the living room during "hark the herald angel's sing" with a special star wand, and a very solemn expression on their face. She might be right...who can say?

Then we had a little immediate family gift exchange at my parents house...

Christmas morning we were off to the Rienstra's household for a fabulous day of gifts and merriment. Check out this monster mystery box...any guesses?

And look - it's a Bob in a bow!

We were graced with a choir girl in a snuggie...

And I'm so thankful to the Lord for my hottie sisters....who ever imagines they'll marry into a household of snuggie models? :0)

Later Christmas Evening we went over to the Noteboom Family Christmas...

And the infamous Christmas present game was as crazy as always...people even steal gifts from poor grandma!

We spent the next day with James' extended family, but sadly no photos of this event. All in all, we had a wonderful time with family - LOVE coming home to visit them. Now if we could only get them over to our side of the country... (wink wink!)

Been awhile...

It's been awhile since I've last posted. Probably because there has been lots of reading and writing for final papers, memorizing French vocab for French tests, and editing of writing samples for Ph.D. applications (and might I add that James turned in his first application today, which called for Trader Joe's peppermint bark to celebrate!).

Despite the fact that I get to study in a library that looks like this, and that I sometimes pretend I live at Hogwarts and that my best friends are Ron and Hermione,

I'm still basically covered in books like this, writing papers on the moral significance of innovation. Thus my world is not quite as glamourous as that of Harry Potter, especially when I don't have a broomstick to grab and a quidditch match to go play.

So I still find myself day-dreaming in the midst of my studies, especially when I find posts like this one on the topic of English country houses:

(http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/12/past-present-english-country-house-diy-project.html)

And then I start looking on Travelocity for cheap tickets to go visit here:

And guess what - I found a killer deal with roundtrip tickets from NYC to London, including 6 nights hotel and 6 days of breakfast, all for the ripe price of $599.00 - are you kidding me!?! Anybody up for a jaunt to the continent?

Well, let me know, in the meanwhile - I'm back to the library...