We spent the last few days of 2011 in Kershaw, SC. This is where my mom’s parents live. When my Aunt and Uncle arrived, they gave Sam some of his Christmas early so he could play with it while he was there. He was thrilled!
On the 30th, we headed to Florence for our annual trip to my hometown. My dad still makes pies for some of our friends that live there and this is when we were able to deliver them this year.
One of the guys that I went to school with from nursery- graduation has a dad who is HILARIOUS! He and my dad are good buddies and so Mr. Ed is usually the first Florence recipient of an “edible Christmas card”- aka pecan pie. He has an Obama mask and Mr. Ed and my dad thought it would be funny to take pictures of Sam sitting on “Obama Claus’” lap. Sam even went so far as to tell Obama Claus what he wanted for Christmas. HA HA HA!
While making our rounds, we drove by my high school alma mater, South Florence HS. I really like the “new” electronic sign out by the road. It has probably been there for years but we never get out that way anymore so it is new to me.
The first street that I grew up on is on the same road as the Florence Museum. In front of the museum, is an old train the thou can play on. We dressed in LC clothes so that we could take a family picture that I will use on our “we’ve moved” card. I can still remember walking to the museum and sitting in the back of the train and reading or drawing or just relaxing when I was kid. So peaceful…
The Whisenant family introduced Travis to “word feud” and so they all sat on the couch and played each other in scrabble on their phones. HA!
From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/travisandstephanie/December2011?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">December 2011
My great aunt, Julia, was able to come visit with us. It was fun to be able to sit and talk with her. I don’t see her very often and Travis and Sam had never met her! Her husband, Uncle Wes, passed away this past year and so she was able to come. In the past, she has been taking care of him and unable to travel. Sam LOVED visiting with Aunt Judy- his great GREAT aunt!
During Dirty Santa, I noticed that one of my little cousins had her toes crossed! I don’t know how you do this but I took a picture because it just looked so crazy!!
While Sam napped, after gifts were done, my grandma helped me with a craft project I had been wanting to do. She stitched two of Sam’s shirts that he had outgrown together and then Anna (our newest cousin, by marriage) and I got busy stuffing the shirts to make pillows! I really like how they turned out!
Once Sam woke up, my cousin Ryan and his family had to get ready to leave. Before they left though, Sam played with Shane, Katelyn, and Nolan in the backyard. They had so much fun. They tried to teach Sam how to play tag. It was hilarious. Sam just enjoyed running around like a goof though. Here is a video of the fun..
Finally, 2011 is over and our little family is looking forward to 2012 and all the changes it will be bringing to our family!
The day after Christmas, we headed to Greer, SC to give Mama (my grandmother) her Christmas presents. It was also the night for the Monday Night Football game of the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons. You don’t have to know my dad very long to know that he is a Falcon fan. He has been a fan ever since the franchise started in the ATL. I am a Who Dat fan and so it was a lot of fun to watch the game with my dad- even if he did get frustrated with the Falcons.
First, Mama got to open her presents. Thankfully, she had Sam there to help her. By the way, he chose the wrapping paper- Dora the Explorer!
I don’t remember the final score and I am too lazy to look it up. All I know is that the Saints scored A LOT more points than the Falcons. Who dat say day gonna beat dem Saints?
Travis’ dad’s side of the family hold their annual get-together on Christmas day. It is held in the fellowship hall of Bethel Baptist in Ellenboro. This is the church where Travis was baptized, licensed to preach, and ordained so it is pretty special to him. We all get together and eat, hang out, and watch the kids run all over the place. It is a very fun time.
Sam shares his birthday with his cousin, Olivia (except she was born exactly one year earlier.) I think it is pretty neat.
The birthday cousins played a duet on the piano.
Then, Sam opened his gift from Santa- a sweeper! He had a blast playing with it for a bit before we moved onto other gifts. In the background on the right, we you can see our completed Jesse Tree sitting on Sam’s table. I thought I took a picture of it fully decorated but apparently I didn’t. Oops!
After gifts, we got dressed and packed our cars. We headed to Ellenboro for Wright family Christmas and my parents headed to SC. However, we did take some family photos with the soldier.
Our church does not do a Christmas Eve service. Normally, that isn’t a big deal because we are out of town. However, this year we spent Christmas Eve at our house before traveling so I was on the hunt for a local service. We lucked out in that one of my MOPS mentors, Sylvia, recommended our MOPS church because they do a children’s pageant. Children ages 4+ show up and get dressed in Christmas clothes and sing and reenact the Christmas story. It was ADORABLE!!
Please forgive the photo quality, the sanctuary was packed out and we were near the back.
Here is are the videos I made…
Sam starts conducting in the first…
“Silent Night”…
After the service, we had a “traditional” (please note that is sarcasm) Christmas Eve dinner- Over the Border! After eating yummy mexican, we headed a little south (?) of Raleigh, to a town called Wendell and watched a light show that a man does every year. It was amazing!!
Here is a video snippet…
I don’t know how long the actual “performance” is- we stayed for about 10 minutes and then left. It was FREEZING!!!
When we got home, Sam went to bed full of excitement for Christmas morning!
The Friday before Christmas started Travis’ Christmas break with SEBTS. We took advantage of this by going to the NC Museum of Life and Science for the morning. It is conveniently located in Durham and I had been seeing commercials about this special train exhibit they have during December where they set up a model train “town” that represented special landmarks from across the state.
They have TONS of stuff for kiddos to play with/on. Sam loved it! Our first stop was this huge music making area. Sam had a blast playing with all of the giant instruments.
We bought tickets to go on a train ride (go figure! HA!) and so while we were waiting for our turn, we checked out the dinosaurs. Sam wasn’t too interested and it was all I could do to not join the kids and play/climb/explore all over them. I love dinosaurs!!
From <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/travisandstephanie/December2011?authuser=0&feat=embedwebsite">December 2011
But not for long... he finally decided to stay with my mom.
They had these mossy animal figures placed throughout the ride. They also had all sorts of other cool stuff to look at- including mirrors going around a curve. It was neat.
Here is a video of the train ride that I made (all while taking pictures so sorry for some of the herky-jerky movements.)
Next up was "Wonderland Express"- that is what they called their special NC exhibit.
They had them split up by geographical areas. These first photos are from the coastal area of NC.
Blackbeard's ship (Queen Anne's Revenge) from Beaufort, NC
I also made a video of the train exhibit.
After the museum, we headed to downtown Durham to eat at a restaurant that I've heard TONS of good things about- The Tobacco Road Cafe. It is located above the outfield wall of the Durham Bulls stadium. Once we figured that out, we didn't have a problem locating it. However, our various map apps couldn't really help us.
While waiting on our food, I walked around outside and took pictures. We never did get to go to a Durham Bulls game and that makes me VERY sad. Hopefully, one day we can get back and visit and go to a game.
I think a timeline would be beneficial even before I start explaining what the title of this post means. So, here ya go…
Dec 2 – 5: Travis is at a SACS (accreditation) conference in Orlando. While there, he eats dinner with some colleagues from NOBTS. One of which is now the VP for Academic Affairs at a Baptist college in Louisiana. This dinner was nothing different- whenever all 3 of “the guys” are at the same conference, they always do at least one meal together.
Dec 6: Travis returns home from the conference. YAY!
Dec 7: Dr. Searcy (aforementioned VP) calls Travis to ask if he would be interested in a newly created position they have at Louisiana College- Associate Vice President for Quality Management. Fancy title for “Accreditation Man.” Travis said he would be lying if he said he wasn’t because he knew what an amazing opportunity this would be. However, he told him he would have to talk to me first. I was quite excited and overwhelmed at the same time.
Dec. 8: Travis calls Searcy and says he is interested. Searcy said he would let the President know.
Dec. 11: Travis gets a text message from Dr. A (President) during Sunday School and I almost fall out of my chair. They talk for a LONG time that afternoon about the job. Dr. A says he wants us to come visit- this upcoming week!
Dec. 13: I go to the dermatologist for a biopsy due to some crazy “BB”s I am growing under my skin in my upper arms. So, now, I have a VERY sore arm.
Dec. 14: We take Peeper to the kennel and drive to Ellenboro to drop Sam off with Travis’ parents.
Dec. 15: Travis and I fly to Pineville, LA- a part of the state that I had never been to.
Dec. 16: We meet with various people, including the President, and have interviews and discuss the intricacies of the job. We also enjoy some relaxing downtime in the hotel. I am really thankful for that because I was EXHAUSTED! That night, Dr. Searcy officially offers the job to Travis and he accepts! We are going to Louisiana College!
Dec. 17: It starts sinking in that we are going to be moving and we get excited and start driving around checking things out. We scope out the zoo that is less than 10 minutes from the campus. We love it so we buy a membership because we know we will come often with the Samster.
Dec. 18: It REALLY starts to sink in as we fly back to Charlotte, pick Sam up and travel back to Wake Forest, that we will be moving. His official first day will be January 12th! Yes, 1 month after he spoke to Dr. A for the first time and less than a month after our trip and his interview. CRAZY!!!!!
Therefore, my life is about to go completely nuts because in less than a month we will be living in Pineville, we will have our house completely packed and moved, AND somehow we have to throw in Christmas holiday family get-togethers. Oh, yeah, in case you didn’t know- we also have a 3 year old! WOWZERS! However, God is faithful and will get us through. Until then, here are some pictures we took while we were there.
Thanks for staying with me through the plethora of pictures. It is not a HUGE zoo but it has a GREAT variety and is very reasonably priced. We are very excited about taking Sam there within the next month!!
Here is a video collage of our trip to the zoo.
Speaking of Sam, he was having a blast with Mum Gail and Pop Pop Earl while we were gone. He got to play on Pop Pop Earl’s tractor…
We are home and starting to pack, I will be ordering our boxes soon. Yikes!! Plus, my parents are coming up tomorrow to spend some time with us since we couldn’t get down to MS for Thanksgiving. Yes, our lives have just gotten VERY CRAZY!!!
The son of the owners of our favorite “fast food” Chinese place is just a year older than Sam. He doesn’t really speak any English. However, that hasn’t stopped them from being buddies. While we wait for our food, Sam usually sits at XiXi’s (CiCi’s) table and they play with toys, color, or “talk.” It is really cute. Then once we get our food, Xixi usually makes his way over to our table and sits with us. He writes English letters on paper and I say them and the phonetic sound and he repeats. He is learning and getting much better!
Sam loves music. I mean really loves music. He REALLY LOVES music!
He is constantly singing while walking around/ riding in the car/ playing/ using the bathroom (seriously…)/ or completely other daily tasks. His all-time favorite song has been The B-I-B-L-E but it MIGHT soon be replaced by “I’ve got peace like a river.” Seeing as I have a musical background, this just makes my heart smile. I can’t wait for Sam to get old enough to actually take music lessons. I think he would LOVE to learn the piano and he can do little things on it already- repeat 3 note patterns that we play, for example. For a 3 year old, we think he has great rhythm too. He bobs his head along to the beat, usually, and has really gotten into conducting lately.
He tried to conduct at our Hanging of the Greens service this past Sunday night but I wasn’t able to record it. However, tonight we went to the SEBTS Christmas concert and he was doing it BIG TIME! I did manage to get a video of that one! After the concert was over, the man who was sitting behind us commented that he thinks we have a budding conductor on our hands. I would have to agree. Watch the video and see if you would agree too…
This next one is even better…
The first Sunday night in December is when our church does their Hanging of the Greens service. This year, Sam was old enough to participate. He even got to sit with our children’s minister and the “big kids.” He was so excited!
