December - Christmas Break and Dog Sitting

Karina is taking chorus as her required fine arts elective in middle school.  She performed in the winter concert with her group.

Christmas was a big success this year.  Lydia took after me as a child and was up multiple times Christmas Eve to first see if Santa had come (he had), and then to see if it was morning yet (it wasn't).  She was very good and let everyone sleep though, so we were rested and ready when it was time for breakfast and to open presents.

Lydia and Derek are both into Star Wars and were happy with a fresh supply of light sabers.

 

Karina got her year's supply of gum that will probably run out in April.

When we were in Oregon staying with Uncle Thomas, the kids watched the Sonic the Hedgehog movie several times, so now we own it, and Karina got the next illustrated Harry Potter book.

  

We always try to make it to this nearby house that puts on huge light shows every Christmas season.  We also went to the fire station that has a model train garden every year.

 

One of the biggest highlights of Christmas was we got to dog sit for Renni, our neighborhood friends' dog, again while they traveled.  We miss Snoopy, so it was nice to have a dog in the house again.  I think he liked being here with us too.  He's a very cute dog - a miniature golden doodle that only weighs 11 pounds.

 

 

We had some tickets to Hersheypark that were expiring at the end of December, so we did an overnight trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania to use them up (and dropped Renni off at another neighbor's house who had pet sit for him previously).  It was fun, but as crowded as it is and as much time as we spend waiting in line for the rides, I don't know that it is worth continuing to go there.

Lydia and Derek up high in the Ferris Wheel.

Lydia is sadly too tall to ride some of the rides she wanted to ride like this airplane and too scared to ride some of the bigger rides like roller coasters.  Derek had fun on this (but he will be too tall next year).  Karina is too tall for many of the rides she likes as well.

At least we can all ride the bumper cars together - Lydia did a great job driving as we chased Karina and Derek.

 

The park is pretty when they have it decorated for Christmas.

We also went to a local place to play laser tag.  The laser tag arena is darkened, so we dressed up in black to make it harder to see us while we snuck around shooting at others with our laser guns.

We were very fearsome competitors.

More pictures of the kids cuddling up with Renni, who was back at our house after our Hersheypark excursion.

Derek is a very cuddly boy, and Karina has started giving him piggy back rides.  They are cute together.