This Christmas we went to Tennessee to see my family. After a long red-eye flight, we made it to Memphis where we met up with my bff Stephanie and her sister Jessica at On the Border. It was fun catching up!
We went to my sister Anna's Christmas dinner/party at the center she goes to. This is Anna's typical surprised face. Mom and Will look funny too. :)
We spent the days before Christmas making so many sweets. Sickening but delicious.
Kim, Mom, me
Anna giggling on Christmas Eve.
The family singing on Christmas Eve
Mom and Dad
Will, me, Papaw and Mamaw (my dad's parents)
Checking out funny pics and videos
This is how we all felt after all the cookies and candy we ate during the break
I played duets with Rob and Kim
How Jacob feels about his bossy wife :)
I wish Will was still smaller than me so I could defend myself
Kim eating her Christmas orange
What did Rob want for Christmas? Summer Sausage. His eyes lit up every time he heard the words.
We got The Office seasons 3 & 4 and the game. Awesome!!
The guys out shooting
Christmas dinner, so yummy. This made up for us missing Thanksgiving dinner.
Will, Stephanie, and I. Apparently Steph is a Blood now, throwing up their gang sign, lol.
At Lambert's, home of the throwed rolls, in Sikeston, Missouri.
See Bubba in the background? A little too much country cookin' for that boy. See how big the mugs are? Anna got 32 oz. of milk! Free refills too.
This restaurant is so fun. The waiters come out yelling, "Hot rolls!" and if you want one you raise your hand and they'll throw it clear across the restaurant. Then they come around with sorghum molasses, fried okra, fried potatoes and onions, and tomato and macaroni salad. The pass-arounds are all you can eat. One guy was eating his meal straight out of the frying pan. If you ever go near Sikeston (eastern Missouri) you have to stop here.
Uncle Mike, Aunt Elaine, and Wendy came from Indiana to meet us for lunch. Will looks so different from the other Austin men.
My brother is still a pyro and the husbands enjoy it just as much. This is them blowing up a potato.
Merry Christmas
Too bad we're missing Louisa and Josh in these family photos. We really did miss you two!
A funny one
We used Kim's new flexible tripod to hook her camera to the light.
I loved being home. The weather was mostly in the 50s so that was nice. Will had a bunch of clean comedian DVDs that we watched. Look up Tim Hawkins on youtube. We played games and ate a lot. We rang in the new year with Mom, Dad, Anna, and Will, playing games and popping champagne poppers. We did fireworks the night before with Kim and Jacob.
Our flight back was a 10 hour, non-stop from Atlanta, Georgia. We got 3 movies and 2 meals so it went by fairly quickly. I had mixed emotions on the plane ride back. I was sad leaving my family because I had such a great time, sad knowing that we only have 4 more months in Hawaii, sad because we're so far away from everyone, and sad because so many of our close friends moved back to the mainland in December. Once we got back in the swing of things I felt better about being back here. We still have a ton of friends here and I plan to make the most of our time in paradise.
What makes it better is that we have Monday off for MLK Jr. day. And wanna know what's even better than that? Saturday is my birthday! My whole life I've rarely had to go to school or work on my birthday. It either fell on MLK day or we would get a snow day. Just wanted to share my joy (and a pretty picture).
A Waimea sunset
