Playing in the 'snow'

Kyin, Sophie, and Kyins buddy Jordan playin in the fake snow in the ice castle while waiting to see Santa. Soph had that stuff in her hair for days!

Santa Came :)

Santa Pic..

We originally took the kids to see Santa on a Saturday night, with the intentions of seeing Santa, then getting dinner with friends. We get to the mall and get to the Ice Castle, where Santa is at, and the line is huge...probably around a 2 hour wait. So we waited in line for 20 minutes before deciding to just skip Santa and come back on a weekday and just going to one of the restaurants in the mall--Chili's and Max & Erma's had a least a 1 hour wait. So we just left the whole mall area and got dinner.

Skip to the following Tuesday, the line was less than 30 minutes long and the kids had a blast watching the video screens and playing in the fake snow in the Ice Castle! Sophie freaked and just said "No Santa, No..." and wouldn't go near him. Kyin on the other hand, hopped right up and said "Hi Santa!" and told him what he wanted for Christmas. This is the first genuine smile I've gotten in a LONG time :)

USS Fort McHenry Christmas Party

The night started out with such promise...but turned into poo.
It was nice getting dressed up and having an adult night with daycare provided for the kids, and the food was actually really good--that could have been because I was starving though. Starving or not, the chocolate cake was amazing. The party was at the Waterside Marriot in Norfolk, and it was gorgeous! I'm bummed I wasn't able to get a picture of me and Jer infront of one of the decorated trees.
Unfortunatly more drama happened than I remember dealing with in high school. And we didn't win any of the sweet prizes this year. :(.

The fam at the Schiffners before the party.

Jerrad's engineering buddies..with Kyin & Jordan.

Jer with more of his friends from the boat.

Just a video....

Winter...

These were going to be Christmas card photos...I scrapped them because I wasn't happy with them, but I figured I'd share them on here. A few days after they were taken we went to the beach and took the ones that actually ended up on the card!

Housing...

After a few scares that we either would be in a place that we didn't want or we would have to live in a hotel for a week or two (eek!) we are signing our lease today for our new place! It's a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 1300 sq foot town house. It has a fenced in backyard (small, but a yard non the less!) and a garage (So Jer is PUMPED).