Christmas in Decatur, December 2014
| For Christmas this year, we packed the car and drove down to Atlanta to be with the extended family to open presents on Christmas morning. We actually headed down Tuesday before Christmas and arrived in time to join in dinner with the Stancils and Steve, Helen and Aaron. |
| The main event started with Christmas eve dinner (for 14) followed by the opening of the presents on Christmas morning. We dropped to 11 (12 with Omar) for present opening. Not surprisingly, it took most of the morning. |
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| I think Robert was the most excited, as it should be. As the youngest, he was the primary present passer outer (in addition to getting many cool gifts like a Guardians of the Galaxy tee shirt a Lego Star Destroyer). |
| Omar was pretty excited too (and managed to knock several ornaments off the tree with his tail wagging). After the presents were unwrapped, we brought SMom over for lunch and her presents. She enjoyed the company, and the gifts. And Susan had the great idea to surround her with grands: Sam, Robert, Sally, Aaron and Kate. |
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| After an exhausting day of present unwrapping, we had another stellar dinner. |
| This time we were joined by Paul and Sandy Thim, along with Paul, Jr. and Annie. Sally decided to make croquembouche for desert. It made an outstanding presentation (and no animals were harmed in the spinning of the sugar lace). |
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| There was lots of interesting conversation over the table (and a few glasses of wine consumed to aid the discussions). |
| After dinner, we hung David's birthday piñata. Robert softened it up so Annie could knock it down. And then, in a fresh tradition started this year, we burned Pinkie the purple, unicorn piñata in the fire pit. |
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| One of the gifts was sparked by a posting in jest on Sarah's Facebook page. Robert ended up cutting a deal with Sarah to get the robotic dart blaster. |
| We joined The North Carolina contingent (can't say Boone or Deep Gap anymore as Aaron is in Raleigh at NC State) in a trip to the Aquarium. This has become a tradition for our Decatur visits. If you go to the Georgia Aquarium and the ballroom happens to be open, go check it out. It was not crowded and had great views into two tanks. |
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| They have also opened a new Aquanaut section upstairs that had several fun, kid friendly actives, including a touch tank. |
| This may be one of the last flights for airplanes out of Sam's window. Loren and Susan have plans to get some work done on the house and part of the work is to fix the window -- and remove the hinges. |
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| We had a picnic lunch with SMom in the sun room at Arbor Terrace with quesadillas from Willy's. |
| And then we took a walk on the Beltline, where Robert climbed under an overpass and found a goat sculpture to ride. Note the fantastic weather for late December. |
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| We finished up the trip with Dinner at Burger Bach in Richmond with Martha. The next morning, Robert began the construction of the Imperial Star Destroyer... It was an all day build, but very cool at the end of the day. And really, what says Christmas better than Darth Vader? |
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Vacation notes:
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