Lazy Sunday 110/365

What a GREAT lazy Sunday! We had eggs benedict for breakfast and napped on the couch all day. We decided on dinner and a movie that night and laughed all the way through It's Complicated. We filled up on bruschetta and pizza and came home to lay down early in preparation for our early morning plans to visit the beach. The singing gingerbread dolls...they were exhausted from the holidays and had a lazy Sunday too :)

Oysters Please 109/365

On Saturday after Christmas, we did a little returning and a little shopping. Then we headed over to the Beach's for what seems to be becoming a holiday tradition...an oyster roast! We spent the afternoon and evening with good friends, great food and perfect oysters. We happily shucked through 3 bushels and finished the night off sitting around the fire.

The man, the myth, the oyster steamer...Joe Beach :)

Steaming...

Dumping...

After the first round...

...and after 3 bushels :)

Perfect Puzzle 108/365

We woke up Christmas morning and opened our stockings first. Then we got together in the living room, around the tree, and opened all of our gifts. One of my stocking stuffers was a puzzle of a picture of Tyler from when he was a little boy.

For breakfast, we had a breakfast casserole and blueberry monkey bread prepared by Amy and Laz in their Hawaiian shirts and Christmas aprons.

Afterwards, the guys headed out to the golf course to walk a few holes while the girls went on a bike ride through the neighborhood. We came back to the house, watched "The Hangover" and then headed to see Sherlock Holmes in the theater. We had a tasty steak dinner at the house and played cards until we couldn't stay awake any longer. It was the perfect way to spend Christmas day :)

Christmas Soldiers 107/365

We woke up on the morning of Christmas Eve, and got ready for more family to come down from Jacksonville. Before everyone arrived, I walked around the house taking pictures of the beautiful holiday decor. One of my favorite pictures that I have taken since I have been here, happens to be the one below of the Christmas soldiers.

Everyone got into town and we all sat down for Christmas lunch. It was delicious as always and I was even able to grab a few pictures around the table. This is Tyler with two of his cousins.

Cocoa grabbed a good seat with Skeeter when we all started unwrapping gifts.

I'm not sure why we are surprised that Tess hates the camera...what a good sport!

Our annual apron picture with our adorable new aprons.

And an apron picture with the whole family!

We stayed in and nibbled on leftovers for dinner. We watched a movie and went to bed early and excited for Christmas morning.

Soup Spoons 106/365

We got up on Wednesday morning, and were on our way to Florida by 8:30am with a full car and Chick-Fil-A biscuits in hand. We made pretty good time with two quick stops and were pulling into Tyler's house in St. Augustine a little before 3:30pm. We unpacked the car and got everything settled in. We had a soup and sandwich dinner with three different soups and lots of sandwich ingredient choices.

After dinner, we headed out to downtown St. Augustine for a horse and carriage ride. The entire town is lit for the holidays and it was nice and cool so we enjoyed some hot chocolate on our ride. After the ride, our driver took some pictures...and we even got to take one with Felix the horse.

Picture This 105/365

On Tuesday night, I worked on getting all of our gifts wrapped and ready for Christmas while Tyler picked up Ethan after work and took him out to Chuck E. Cheese's. They battled lots of rush hour and holiday traffic but they finally made it. They had pizza and plowed through 100 tokens before getting some picture sketches taken and heading home. Tyler was excited to be able to see Ethan right before the holidays and as always, they both had a blast!

Tyler came home with a picture of him and Ethan and some extra tickets so I could use them for our picture. We got all packed up for our trip to Florida and, after we threw our entire closet into the suitcases, we headed to sleep.

Twinkling Star 104/365

I finally finished the holiday shopping yesterday after work! Tyler and I enjoyed chicken soup and snuggled in to watch the Giants/Redskins game. Tyler watched until the end and has happily made it to the fantasy football championship game in two of his leagues. While he watched, I decided to play with my camera a little in an attempt to learn how to blur out the lights on our tree. This is my favorite one I took and more than anything I love knowing that I can see a technique and then figure out how to replicate it. I am missing my class already but am so grateful for everything I learned!