Week of Christmas

The week of Christmas was both joyous and productive. 

• We spent two days playing with friends.
• Rock Climbing
• I was able complete my history plans for next semester. 
• Our fireplace was finally up and running
• Our gift to the family this year was a second cage for the bird, so he would sleep in a bit as we put it in the guest/lego room where we have dark drapes.
• We Feng Shuied ALL the kids clothes, moving out and redistributing the old between the boys.
• I finally got access to to all my pictures on my computer so I could finally move forward on all the blog posts I was behind.
• Chris replaced all the lower cabinet hinges on all the kitchen cabinets.
• We learned the meaning of Boxing Day and plan to celebrate accordingly next year.
• Chris had a bike clinic and did much need maintenance on all the bikes, followed by a joint test ride.
  

We celebrated Christmas Eve by reading for the first time "Twas the Night before Christmas" to the boys.  Our purpose was not really nostalgia but to give them a better appreciation to the Hillbilly parody we laugh at on some CDs we got years ago from Dollywood.  After the reading, I originally planned a more serious reading of Dickens. However, we I decided we might all enjoy the "Muppets Christmas Carol" a bit more this year, so we rented if from Amazon.  It turned out to be a good choice because even it was a bit tense for some in certain parts.


Christmas Day we continued the tradition of "Daddy French Toast" for breakfast.  One of the few meals everyone in the house will eat.  Followed by our other family tradition, the Otto Family Scavenger Hunt.  I gave them ten hints they had to find before they found their gifts.  I always hold back letting them open some gift from someone till Christmas morning this year if was their gifts from the Parays.


This year we even had a little Christmas miracle; Chris took two broken computers and made one working computer.  The miracle was that it worked the first try and it didn't take too long either.

In the afternoon, we enjoyed a the beautiful day and took a walk together.  There are still no animals pics on the Game Cam.  We had high hope because of scat we found the day of bird escaped but I'm sure we'll get something soon.

We finished up the evening playing board games and watching the boys race their RC cars.  It was particularly nice that Chris had off these two days.  It gave us all time to relish in each others company and remember the true meaning of Christmas.