Christmas Break!

Christmas break was wonderful! Will and I worked a reasonable amount of hours and were still able to relax and make fun plans together. The best part was that we weren't didn't have deadlines or pressures on us due to homework. We got caught up on sleep and had time to do whatever we wanted!

This was Christmas at the Shirley home. Will said it was the most presents he'd seen at one time, but the fastest he'd seen anyone open presents.

Christmas shopping for each other was fun for both of us. We did most of it alone or online, but when we were at the same store, we were both on a secret mission that the other couldn't know about. On one of these secret missions, Will found some boots that were a risky buy. I opened them on Christmas morning and absolutely loved them! (And contrary to popular belief, this is the newest style: boots and plaid flannel pajama bottoms....oh ya.)

Will also gave me a violin because I have been wanting to learn to play for some time now. It was a major hit. I loved it and my sisters loved it, too!

Will got some snazzy sunglasses that have a Thundercats logo on the side. He was pretty excited to open those!

Some of the funnest activities we did were simple card or board games. We played Egyptian RatKing about a thousand times over the holiday break.

We also played a game called Stack. This is a dice game where each player has to stack their dice on top of other players' dice in order to score points. Will is quite the strategic player and he got some pretty high scores!

This is Will's and my amazing duet together. He played the piano and I played my violin. We sounded absolutely marvelous to ourselves, but in reality, we weren't that impressive. We sure had a lot of fun, though, and we'll both improve our skills over time. We were both learning!

Mom's cousins, Janene and Brian, came to visit with their children for a night before New Year's. We went out to dinner with them, and I got to have my very first strawberry colada (don't worry, it wasn't spiked). It was a fun night, and we stayed up playing games waaaayyyyy past our bedtime: 2:30am!! Our new favorite game is Ticket to Ride now because Brian brought it with them. This is a picture of me not drinking my colada but drinking Will's Coke.

For the break, Will decided to grow a little bit of a goatee, and he's proud of what he was able to accomplish over just a week of growing!

For New Year's Eve, we went to Grammie's house and ate a lot of food and played some more games, one of which was Headbands. Here are my mom and I wearing our sweet headbands:

I don't even have an explanation for this picture other than "Good morning!"

Will and I had a great break together, and we're looking foward to the new semester beginning!!