Christmas Trip 2 -- 2011
| After our trip to New Jersey before Christmas and Christmas in Alexandria, we headed down to Atlanta for our post-Christmas Christmas. The drive was a little longer than expected due to traffic being a bit worse than expected. But once we arrived, we were able to visit with the whole Williams clan. |
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| And, of course, there were a few more presents mingled in with the visiting and catching up. Robert got a really cool light on a tripod that we'll see more of later. |
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| There were some donations to worthy causes for the adults and more fun things (Wii games and gift cards) for the younger generation. |
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| Then we took a break to investigate one of Steve's presents. He asked for help getting samples of Bourbon for a tasting (we tend to be single malt Scotch snobs), and was surprised with a bottle of Rare Eagle 101 decanted into the ceramic eagle in 1980 (on the right side of the photo to the left). |
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After careful sampling, the Rare Eagle was generally acknowledged as the winner. The Booker's (overly strong, carefully bottled Bourbon from the James B. Beam company) was a close second and there was more discussion around third and fourth. A couple carfulls of Susan's family came in during the tasting and helped with the ranking. Then, we adjourned to the living room for some more catching up over wrapping paper. |
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| The next day, Kate continued preparations (along with her family of sous chefs) for the big party: Sam and Oscar's graduation party. As much of the prep work was done ahead of time, and Kate had Thursday planned down to the half hour to make sure all the day of work was taken care of. |
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| While Robert likes to help out in the kitchen, there were many cooks already working there and he had all of Sam's Legos to build with. And when he needed break from Lego building, he took advantage of Sarah being busy with kale to borrow her Kindle Fire. |
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| As the guests arrived, Robert serenaded them with a harmonica concert. Well, actually, he realized he didn't want to compete with the sound system and started his concert out by the tree house. As the sound was turned down and with his audience lacking, he moved closer to the house. Notice the great job his new tripod mounted flashlight did as a spot light. (Harmonica lessons may be in our future, if there is such a thing...) |
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| The party was great success both inside the house and outside by the fire pit -- it was cool but not too cold with the fire going. The food was fantastic and it was great to see old friends and meet some new ones through Sam and Oscar. Clearly, there was a lot more catching up and story telling going on... |
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| Alas, our short trip had to come to an end and we headed back up to DC on Friday. Sarah thought it would be good to break the trip in Richmond and it would make visiting with Martha much easier, so I suggested a final indulgence and we ended up spending the night at the Jefferson Hotel, Richmond's finest. Of course, we had to take a couple pictures on our way out (sorry to be late, Martha). |
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It is a magnificent place, and with the alligators strewn around, lots of fun as well. Being there while it was decked out for Christmas was just icing on the cake (300 pounds of it on the gingerbread house I didn't get a picture of). While that was fun and a great way to end our Christmas break, it really was the time we've had to spend with family and friends that has made this such a great couple of weeks. |
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Vacation notes:
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