MIA No More - Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

I know we've been MIA from the blog for awhile.  We were battling sickness and traveling a lot the last couple months.

We had a great Thanksgiving with family.  We double dipped for Thanksgiving dinner and were able to see all the family.  Samantha loved seeing all her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  Josh was just happy to have so much attention!

When we got back from our Thanksgiving trip, we had a notice on our door about high water usage.  I called the county to find out what was wrong and it was determined that we had a water leak between the county meter and the house.  This did not make for a happy start to December.

We hired a contractor to install a new water line but in true "money pit" fashion, it was not all that we expected.  The line from the county meter goes out about 2 feet and then the homeowner line is attached to that and then is supposed to head toward the house.  In our case, the line went in a very different direction first.

 

So about $4000 later we at least have a new water line.  If I had known we were going to have such a hefty bill in our future I would have kept working for a little longer!  The whole experience was quite stressful and kept us stuck at the house for an entire week between county people, contractors, inspectors, and Verizon (because our line was cut in the process) coming to the door.  Let's hope we have nothing else like that again! 

Even through the stress at the beginning of the month, we were able to do a few fun Christmas things with the kids.  We attended "Light Up Night" in Saxonburg - complete with a live nativity (including camels!) and Santa.

 

We also went to see some Christmas lights around town and went to ICE at the National Harbor. 

Samantha was very excited about the holiday.  Lighting the Advent candles each night and talking about Jesus' birthday were definitely some highlights of the preparation.

We traveled again for Christmas and the kids were definitely spoiled rotten by our families!  Samantha was so excited about all the presents she received - every time she opened another gift she exclaimed "I LOVE it!!"  It was adorable but of course when we tried to take a video of it she stopped. 

I'll just post a handful of pictures we took over Christmas - the kids had a great time!
  

 

Our New Year was very low key.  I took the kids to "Noon Year's Eve" at the library to have a nice countdown party.  Then we were able to watch the "Midnight at 7" fireworks from our driveway (a perk we will miss if we move from this house).  New Year's Day was spent eating lots of good luck food and watching the Ohio State game (so you know what we'll be doing on the 12th too!).

We have big plans in the coming weeks to finish the upstairs and to remove a lot of the clutter from the house.  It's not so much a resolution as a necessity!  I'll also try to do the fifth annual "Twelve Months of Home Renovation" soon (better late than never!).