Sorry there are not many pictures right now, but if you don’t mind reading, you can catch up with us while we work on getting more pictures up.

Christmas was a great holiday to celebrate this year. So much has happened in the past year with the whole process of our engagement and wedding, moving to a new city, building a home out of a house (which is still in progress), and staying on top of work and school work, that ending the year with family and friends we haven’t seen in a LONG time was perfect!

We spent Christmas Eve with Chad’s parents and Uncle Bill who came in town from North Carolina, and Christmas morning Chad and I spent our first Christmas as a family in our own home. I tried to cook the Borders’ family tradition of broiled grapefruit for breakfast, but it came out kind of disastrous!

Broiled grapefruit for those of you who don’t know is a halved grapefruit that’s been properly prepared with butter and brown sugar on top and broiled for about 6 minutes. We, however, had run out of butter just a couple days ago and had not picked any up at the store yet. Crisco is NOT a substitute for broiled grapefruit! Therefore, we decided to take the makings over to the Miller’s and try again. What a success! Everyone who ate the fruit was delighted, and Chad and I did have the good stuff after all!

The next day, December 26th, Chad and I started out early at about 7:00 to drive to Georgia, and thus began the fastest Christmas I remember at the Borders’.

All three days we were there, I was up at my grandparents helping pack and pick things I wanted for our household. My grandparents, you see, are moving in with my parents right next door who are also housing my brother Stephen and his family Beth, my niece Madeline, and nephew Jackson, and golden retriever Anna. The purpose of the big switch-a-roo is so that Stephen and Beth can renovate my grandparents house to move into in the future. It was built in 1869 and is need of some definite structural help and a nice face-lift. My grandparents are happy to hand down the house to someone who wants it to remain closely historically accurate and care for it, but it’s no fun having to clean out so quickly when things have collected for a couple of generations. The amazing thing about all of it is that my grandmother is sharper than a tack because she can remember the story behind just about everything you point out to her. Ask her where her box of florist tape and extra silk flowers are and she’ll tell you exactly where to look under the bed, behind which box with checkered yellow and blue print all over it, in which room. Her memory of such detail at 88 years old is just amazing! Between her and my engineer Army Air Force grandfather, i have some really cool grandparents!

In between all of this packing, we had time to open presents, play cards, and still go out for pizza with the whole gang of the cousins. It’s been a long time since all of us could be together, and it was really nice to have everyone hanging out now that the age difference makes less of a social difference, but it will probably be a long time before we can do that again.
Chad and I did not use our camera due to the amount of cameras there and the blog expert and journalist Kari Mason (my cousin), but here’s the picture she took of all of us!

Kari’s Blog

After we said good-bye to all the travelers from overseas and nearby states, we made it back to Mississippi in time to visit with Chad’s cousins from Boone, NC, Kieth, Shannon, and little Madison. Madison is 2 and almost a half and is so adorably cute and full of zest and energy. Her cute, sweet Southern accent made it great to find something to smile about. For example, “yeah” is more “yah-yeh” and “daddy” is more “de-yah-dy”, and to top it off, Madison calls herself “my-ny” (don’t know where that came from really, but it sure is cute!). They stayed until Monday after lunch when Madison was headed towards nap mode and hit the road shortly there after.

Yes, Christmas break was wonderful this year, even if it went by faster than hoped.

We love you all so dearly and hope your New Year is blessed and ready for what’s ahead.

Here’s a verse that’s printed on January first of my day-planner:
“You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am.”
Psalms 139:3