We started Christmas a little early this year and flew to meet my side of the family in Atlanta last Sunday for Dad's Journey with Gentle Giants. :-P He turned 50 this year so Amanda, Travis, and I surprised him with a snorkeling trip in the Georgia Aquarium with whale sharks! His flight was a delayed coming out of Philadelphia and he ended up spending 36 hours or so in the airport. It was certainly not the ideal way to start the trip, but he made it to Atlanta safe and sound. We got to the aquarium on Monday several hours before his swim started so we would have time to see everything. It's really an amazing aquarium - by far the best I've ever been to. Early in the day we decided to go on a quick behind the scenes tour and were at the top of the large tank just in time to watch them feed the whale sharks. They have a total of four whale sharks and each one is trained to eat from a certain color bucket of food. It was so cool to watch and I think it gave Dad a little reassurance that everything had been well fed. :-) LOL - he wasn't really nervous at all, but we did like to give him a hard time about becoming lunch. 4:00 rolled around and Dad was off to swim. By this time most people had left the aquarium, so it wasn't really crowded. We had a guide who helped us to find Dad after he got in the water. It was so fun to watch him swim, especially when the whale sharks would swim close to his group. We got to watch him snorkel from both the tunnel and viewing window. After he got out, our guide took us on another behind the scenes tour and we got to see the top of every tank. She was very knowledgeable and passionate about what she was doing which to me made the whole tour fantastic (although the guy that was with us who wasn't our guide but decided to tag along was a little weird...you could tell he was a serious nerd). Dad absolutely loved the swim - what an amazing experience! We spent the rest of the trip eating at the Marietta Diner (featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives), watching Avatar, or laughing hysterically with the rest of the family. It was truly the perfect way to start Christmas and we're so glad we were able to spend time with the family.
We got home from Atlanta late Tuesday night and were greeted with multiple winter storm warnings. They were predicting 20 inches of snow between Wednesday night and Friday night. Kevin went shopping for food (because we're good Southerners and when you're expected to get a lot of snow, you shop for the essentials - bread, milk, and bottled water :-P) and I went to work. Wednesday was CRAZY - I will never wait to do my Christmas shopping until that late ever again. Thursday was surprisingly slow and I got to be home early with Kevin, which was nice. Around 3 pm I started to really dwell on our lack of anything Christmasy...
Kevin and I had previously agreed that for a lot of reasons, a tree was not practical this year. First, we were gone for several days before Christmas and wouldn't be able to really enjoy the tree. Second, we have cats. Five of them. Cats like to climb trees...well, let's be honest - Sander likes to climb trees. He also likes to knock things off of trees and attack other cats or feet from under trees. Sander + Christmas tree = NO!!! Third, and maybe most important, we don't really have any decorations. We never spent Christmas together in Fayetteville so we never had to put up a tree before. If you don't put up a tree, you don't bother to buy decorations. And you can't really register for Christmas decorations if you get married in May. Fourth, I hadn't picked out a theme yet. The theme, according to other married couples, is very important. So, no tree for the Hendersons. I was really fine with this...until 3 pm on Christmas Eve. Then I started to think about the next morning...where would we open presents? What would we gaze at as our favorite Christmas song came on the radio? What would I post on facebook about our first Christmas?? Nothing?! This was not okay.
So, at 3:10 on Christmas Eve, my wonderful husband got our tree out of the garage and set it up. :-) It's a prelit tree and is beautiful!! By 4:30 we were on our way to Target for decorations. That's right - my husband drove through TONS of snow on Christmas Eve to buy decorations for a tree we had agreed we didn't need just to make my Christmas special. By 6:00 we had a fully decorated Christmas tree, stockings hanging on the fireplace, wrapped gifts under the tree, and Christmas music filling the house. It was truly the best "Merry Christmas" Kevin could ever have given me.
Our tree :-)
The stockings
Presents!!
We received great presents from friends and family this year! My favorites included a web cam from Alana and a purse cover my Dad picked out because...seriously...it matched my blog (below). Is that amazing or what?! How many dads A) read their daughter's blog and B) would pick a purse in the same style because it is clearly something they like? I love you, Dad. :-)
Kevin's parents sent us a Blu-ray player which we're excited about and Sue sent us a Garmin!! It's so much fun - we set the voice setting to Australian English and our friend Karen gives us directions from down under. Hehehe... We also bought Christmas presents for ourselves today including a new wireless printer, our first Blu-ray movie, and...wait for it...new couches!!! We bought a sectional for the main floor and an amazing couch with recliners for our entertainment room downstairs. Yay!! They're perfect for our new home and I can't wait until they get here!!!
We spent parts of both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day shoveling our driveway - how Minnesotan is that?! On Christmas Eve one of our neighbors we had never met helped us with his snow-blower. It was a very random act of kindness and I'm so thankful there are people like that in our neighborhood. The snow piled up pretty high over the last few days, but it was also rather warm out so some of it started to melt. We're now stuck with ice and muddy slush everywhere, which is not as fun as powdery snow. :-/ Last night we ate a wonderful dinner of baked ham, twice-baked potatoes and green bean casserole. Yum!! Thanks to our parents for all the delicious recipes!
It was such a wonderful Christmas in the Henderson household. :-) Thank you, Lord, for all the things you have given to us and for how faithfully you provide for our family! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's to all!
Much love!!
