Christmas/New Year's 2019

Another year has come to a close. The holidays flew by, and fun was had (most of the time....not counting the time that I had the flu, the kids all had a virus, Deke had pinkeye, etc.).

It all started with a visit with the big man himself.

Jasper was...less than pleased to be put onto a stranger's lap. Piper has decided she's outgrown visiting Santa. Fletch and Deke are still 100% into it. They all also were 100% into the Elf on a Shelf this year (named Jingles). Twenty-five days of that sucker moving around our house, but it was worth it for the magic that the kids all felt every morning when they went looking for him.

Christmas itself was good, and then we had a never-ending two week school break. The highlights were going to see the new Star Wars movie on Christmas Eve day, and going to the aquarium in Baltimore on New Years Eve Day.

I'm not sure much has warmed my heart more than Fletch bringing his framed photo of his favorite aquarium friend, Galaxy, to the aquarium so his namesake could see the pic. I hope Fletch always stays so authentically awesome.

As for New Years, we kept things low key--Chinese food for dinner, and then we let the big kids stay up until midnight. On NYD, we just got our house back in order, put away gifts, I went to OTF, and we all took a nice walk. A great, relatively calm way to start a new year. Welcome to 2020!