2023 in review

 Our year got off to a horrific start as PaPa's cancer diagnosis escalated quickly and we were forced to say goodbye as we were saying hello to a new year.  This rocked our world and we were devastated to lose him.  We were all lucky enough to spend some precious time with him hours before he passed.

 

Emmy celebrated her 11th birthday in early February and has definitely been falling into the role of a tween!

 Bryce celebrated his 14h birthday and we are slowly and blindly navigating the teenage world. 

 

 We headed to Florida for spring break.  PaPa's favorite place was the beach and he was truly missed on this trip. 

We celebrated Nana's 70th birthday in May.  

 

 

 The kids each celebrated big milestones in June. 

 

 

Emmy graduated from elementary school and Bryce from middle school. 

 

 

We bought a new car!  This was huge!  We didn't really want a new car, but we NEEDED a new car. 

 

 

We went to the beach in July with Jason's family's long time friends, the Comps.  It was such a great reunion and Charles' absence was definitely felt.  But we ate all the ice cream and played putt putt in his memory. 

 

 

August brought our 20th anniversary and a trip back to our honeymoon destination! 

 

 

We shared the experience with the kids and our dear friends. 

 

 

Bryce started high school this year!  Wow!

 

 

Emmy started middle school this year.  Another WOW!

 

 

We made it to Blacksburg for a Virginia Tech football game.  Bryce is hoping this is his home away from home in a few years. 

 

 

Bryce went to his first homecoming with his girlfriend.

 

 

Emmy continues to put in effort in her sport and received 2nd all around at a meet this fall.  Bryce is also enjoying baseball and has been practicing with the high school team with hopes of making the team in the spring!

 

 

We traveled to Raleigh for Thanksgiving for the first time since covid and were able to spend time with all of our family. 

 

 

We kicked off the Christmas season with the annual Mechanicsville Christmas parade.  This year was bittersweet as our Beljacklock group is changing as some move away.

 

 

We celebrated the birth of our savior and had a Merry Christmas despite missing loved ones!

 

 

We wrapped up the year with a fun hibachi dinner!

 

 

 

Blessings to you and your family for a happy and healthy 2024!

Merry Christmas

 We had two days of fun celebrating Christmas. 

 

 

I attempted Christmas tree cinnamon rolls for Christmas Eve breakfast before church.  Last year they turned out a little better. 

We spent the afternoon at Nana's.  We had Chinese for lunch and opened presents with Nana and Paul. Bryce got two pickleball sets since Nana has a court in her neighborhood.  We had fun playing a family game.  

 

 

We headed back to church in the evening for the Christmas Eve candlelight service. 

 

 

We had to wake the kids up at 7:30 so we'd have enough time to open presents and get ready for our first stop at 9 AM.

 

 

It's safe to say we had two happy kiddos. 

 

 

Even Bentley had a merry Christmas!

 

 

We ate breakfast at Kelly's and then opened presents.  Jason's aunt and uncle had blankets made out of PaPa's old shirts.  The kids really loved this gift and it sure brought a tear to all of our eyes.  This first Christmas without PaPa was very different.  We sure do miss him!

 

 

After presents we played the saran wrap ball game.  It was lots of fun!  I ended up winning the final prize money in the center of the ball after getting zero chances at opening the ball because doubles were always rolled so soon on my turn!

 

 

Our motley Christmas crew.

 

 

I know this was a tough holiday for MeMa, but these four right here sure love her and keep her smiling!

 

 

 

We hope you and your family had a merry Christmas!

 

 

Christmas is finally here

For the first time ever, the kids were in school the entire week leading up to Christmas.  This left us little time during the week to do festive things to make it feel Christmasy.  Luckily, Emmy had a fun week planned. 

The sixth and seventh graders went on a Christmas Crusade field trip on Monday to do random acts of kindness around town.  I got to tag along and it was lots of fun. 

She got out early all week, so we watched Christmas movies afterschool most days. 

She went home with a friend on Wednesday and her friend group did a secret Santa exchange and the mom hosted a fun party for them. 

We had our neighborhood Christmas party on Thursday.  We were missing one of our OG families. 

I took Bryce and his girlfriend ice skating on Friday night.  Bryce was SO glad to finally be out of school. 

I made sure we did all of the festive things today.  We had green Christmas tree waffles and then we decorated cookies!

They each did fewer cookies than normal, but I had plenty of fun decorating the leftovers. 

They left A LOT for me!

It's hard to believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve!

one week until christmas

We got our first snow on Monday!  It was very warm on Saturday and Sunday, but a cold front came through with lots of precipitation and the change over from rain to snow overnight was enough to get the kids a 2 hour delay on Monday. 

This week was Christmas spirit week at Emmy's school.  Monday was ugly sweater day.

Girls wore red on Tuesday. 

Our county has a tradition of Santa coming around on the fire truck each season.  Tuesday was our day.  Emmy kept warm with hot chocolate while we waited.

Hi, Santa!

Wednesday was winter wonderland. 

Emmy had her Christmas piano recital on Wednesday night.  She did a great job with Jingle Bell Rock. 

We just love her teacher, Ms. Emily.

Thursday was twin day!

Friday was pajama day. 

The Yonce family are our good friends.  Their 10 year old son Gavin is fighting bone cancer like a champ!  He has needed a couple of blood transfusion during his journey and his parents wanted to give back to others this holiday season who also may need blood.  Jason and I helped organize and host a blood drive at our church on Saturday.  We got 41 donations/pints!

Christmas is quickly creeping up on us but we're trying to squeeze in all the holiday things.  We went to Winterfest at Kings Dominion last night and the kids went ice skating.  They did a great job and had a lot of fun!

Our county scheduled a wonky break this year so unfortunately our kids go to school every day this upcoming week.  That means we still have a full daytime school  and evening sports schedule leading right up to Christmas.  It's making it hard to find time to do all the festive things.  Hopefully we won't mind once Christmas has passed and we're in Floriday for a week in January!