New Year's Day Mandu

It is so nice we are able to carry on some traditions we had in Kirkland, and one of my favorites was making Mandu (Korean dumplings) every New Year's Day. 

Mark is good at supervising and making sure we are all on task.  One of the best parts is we get to eat some after we are done filling them.

New Year's Eve

Mark and Lon bought some fireworks to light off on New Year's Eve.  Always fun!

Brian and Chong came down to help us light them off

Sparklers!  I still love them

A little fountain.

Mark likes Roman Candles

Our neighbors got some BIG fireworks

The fireworks were fun to light off, we did ours about 9

A good time was had by all.

Chess

Mark is helps teach Chess to the Boy Scouts at Summer Camp.  For Christmas Lon got a Star Wars chess set.

Lon will not win all the games but he did win one!  He is learning



I switched cameras! Mark got me a much better camera! I am so excited to start using it!

Smashing the GIngerbread

One of the traditions Lon loves is building the ginger bread house, and then smashing it on New Year's day

Ready?

Getting it smashed to tiny bits!

Scout had fun watching the smashing.

Christmas

 

Lon so excited to tear into his presents!

Vintage Boy Scout Books! SO cool!

mark is impressed

A hat to keep his head warm on camp outs

a Metal Earth kit of a Star Wars walker

Mark got a Liberty Puzzle of  the Taj Mahal. He was thrilled with it

Jammie Pants!

This year's big present! The Taj Mahal.  It was SO heavy!  Lon wanted to start it right away, we said no. not yet

He was able to build the England Double Decker Bus from Grandma!

The kitten's were not forgotten by Santa, they got a tiny tunnel to play in. Pebbles liked it, the boys are not impressed

Ranger is ready for dinner at the kid's table

Carving the Roast Beast

Getting the kids taken care of before the adults went to the dining room to enjoy our dinner

The annual photo with the Creche at Church

Christmas Eve

I was able to take some photos of the house after Santa came.

The tree and all the presents

I turned on all the lights to see if Santa really came! He did.  Now to be very quiet till morning

The kitchen lights.

Just the lights of the tree

Our new upstairs tree!

The door to Lon's room.  The lights are battery operated and went from white, to color.

 Sleeping Lon

Sleeping Mark

I let the boys sleep, Santa's presents would be there waiting for them when they woke up

Christmas Lights with the big camera!

I brought the big fancy camera to take some great photos this year of the lights, but I forgot to bring batteries, so there are not very many. 

We met the Chic Fil A cow walking around.  

The falling lights.  they are spectacular to see

At the sand sculpture

A light projection onto the sidewalk. 

Next year I will bring extra batteries

The Christmas Lights of James Island County Park

Every Year we try to see the Festival of Lights.  It is such a wonderful thing to see.

Most of these photos will not have captions, just to let you enjoy the lights

It won't let me caption beside, an editing problem. This is the Pineapple Fountain, famous in downtown Charleston

Mark having a really good time in the tiny toy store

Peekaboo

Lon trying out the rock climbing wall 

He is doing great! 

We love doing this every year!