Beach Day 2

Well it's not very often you can say that you were at the beach in December and got a sunburn. It was 71 outside today and absolutely gorgeous! We spent the day fishing, playing lots of ladder golf and throwing the ball and frisbee for the dogs who never seemed to tire.

Here are some favorite pics from the day and a video of the pups getting caught in a wave.

All the dogs.

Dad and Doug taking the bait, frozen in a mold,
out for the bait launcher.

Laura and Jeb

Uncle Doug and Aunt Cheryl

The puppies all wet

Laura and Aunt Cheryl

Dan and Eric...I wonder what they're talking about.


Sam running on the beach.



Sharks-4....Fish-0

Aunt Page and Katie.

The Beach 2008

We are currently down at Nags Head for our annual beach trip with the Wiedeman side of the family. Eric and I always look forward to this week to spend time with family, each other, and to just enjoy the beauty of God's creation. We have plenty of things to keep us occupied, game systems, videos, ladder golf, etc, but I just love to take my chair down and just sit. It is so peaceful to listen to the ocean while you are surrounded by your family. It's also wonderful to know that 4 families can spend a whole week with each other and when it's over we all still wish we had more time instead of being ready to get home. Here are some pictures from our first day. As you can see it was a little foggy, but very warm.

Dirk, Page, Mom and Dad

Paige and Mom

Danny

Eric

Imaine that, Paige with her camera. She went to take a picture
of me and cracked up when she saw I had taken mine out too!

Mom and Me


Keelie and Me


The dogs had a great time on the beach....

Day One of Paddleball...I wonder if they will get better?

Christmas!

On Christmas Eve our neighborhood lines the streets with lit candles in paper bags to carry on the tradition of welcoming guests. Unfortunately, the weather didn't corporate very well. We had high winds and it was wet out. Most of the bags didn't stay lit, and in a few cases we saw bags that had burnt to the ground. It was beautiful while it lasted though!

On Christmas morning Eric and I stayed home to open our stockings and gifts before heading out to spend time with the family. First we went up the street to Eric's parent's house, where we watched Marion open up her new Mac Notebook. She was so excited she screamed and hugged it several times. Then we headed over to the Danilucks for a family breakfast and gift exchange with the brothers and sisters. Brett, Lexi and Luke were great to watch as they were so thrilled with their new toys and loved having everyone there to show them off to.






The rest of Christmas day was spent playing Rockband 2 with Maggie and Michael before we headed up the street to the Lawrences for the traditional night of desserts and Bunko. Last year, I was tied for last place so this year I decided I really needed to step up my game. Although Eric was not happy because I beat him a couple times throughout the night, I was thrilled to finish tied for first. We had a wonderful time as always.

Christmas Party and House Decorations

I love decorating for Christmas. Here's a few pictures of the house.

The Christmas tree all lit. 6 hours and over 1000 lights!

The mantle

We had our first Christmas party this year. It was a wonderful night and it was great to see a lot of friends and family! We had around 50 guests over the course of the night. Mom, Dad and Kristie came up early to help us rearrange the house so we could maximize our space to fit everyone. After eating lots of food we played some games, including turning someone into a Christmas tree, Christmas movie trivia, and Christmas pictionary.

Yummy Cookies!

Peanut and Jen

Maggie, Gavin, and the Reeves

2 Lawrences and a Daniluck

Most of the Bull Family


Sawyer


Jada and Sam


Dad and Kristie

Kristie, Catherine, and Zach

The Beautiful Ladies: Becky, Dana and Jen

I finally got to meet Stewart...what a cutie!

Lexi


Having fun making Maggie into a Christmas tree

Our Christmas trees!




Little Cameron... I can't believe he's almost a year!

Playing Christmas Trivia

Tis the season...

Well the crazy month of December has begun. We have been busy getting the house decorated for Christmas. We headed out in the cold to find the perfect tree for our home. We found one we liked at the farm, marked it, and continued to look to make sure there wasn't something better. Usually, we have to keep asking "Was this the one we liked?" With this tree we were able to pick it out again. The tree is lit with well over 1000 lights, as is the Wiedeman tradition. Eric says I'm crazy for adding so many lights, but that's what I had growing up, and I love the look. Eric grew up with colored lights, while I'm a white light girl. We compromised, well really I light it so I set the rules, by adding one strand of colored lights down the trunk of the tree and the white lights are wrapped around the branches.

Today, I went over to a friends to bake cookies. Every year a group of us get together to have a baking day. It makes it more enjoyable since our husbands aren't very excited about sitting and chatting with us in the kitchen while we cook. It is a lot of fun, and in the end we go home with lots of cookies.

Now we're just getting the house ready for the Christmas party next weekend!

Thanksgiving

As is tradition, Eric and I headed down to Richmond to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. This year we were missing a few family members, so it was smaller than normal, but the food was wonderful and I guess you can say the company was good too :-) Of course with less people, that means more wings for me! My Uncle Doug makes the best wings. As you can see there is no shortage of food. We ate and ate and after we rolled ourselves off the couch, we played a traditional game of Apples to Apples.

On Friday, we got to have breakfast with my college roommate Tiffany and her husband Josh. As always, we had a great time and wish they would move up to Maryland so we could see them more. We spent two hours, eating of course, talking and laughing so hard I cried at least 4 times. After breakfast we said our goodbyes and headed back to Mom and Dad's for some mistletoe hunting. In case you don't know, mistletoe grows in trees. We like to shoot it down so we can hang it up in our homes, and it's just fun.

We then went back to Doug and Cheryl's house to eat Thanksgiving dinner again; it's just a good the second day. After dinner we headed to the bowling ale for our traditional, and very competitive night, of bowling. The girls like to mix things up during the last game and come up with creative ways to bowl. We even got Eric and Trent to do some this year.





































You always get crazy colors with bowling shoes, but for some reason Eric was the only one with neon this year. Maybe that's what happened to his game. For the first time I actually beat him once!

















The guys: (left to right) Derreck, Matt, Trent and Eric. The girls: (left to right) Laura Dean, Brandie, Angela, Catherine.













The uncles and an Aunt: Dirk, Page, Doug, Dave and Dad.