merry christmas!

well we have just made it through our first (and hopefully last!) christmas without our families! the day was actually a lot better than i thought it would be. i only cried once, and i think that was on christmas eve day. so here's a run down of what we did:

for christmas eve, dan, beth and elijah came over for dinner. i made my moms amazing tomato soup for dinner. it didn't taste completely the same as hers, but it was pretty close. we had tomato soup with homemade croutons and homemade bread. after dinner, we went to the dehnerts for dessert and caroling. we came home and opened the customary braden family christmas eve presents: pajamas!

thursday morning we opened our presents. then we joined the jones' and robbins for christmas day brunch. i made cheese grits (i eat it every year on christmas morning...i definitely could not break that tradition!). sam jones apparently loves cheese grits too...he was so cute...he would take a bite, then go, "mhmm!" it made my day.

every christmas day, they have a special potluck. it was really fun...we got to sit with nell and jack. we brought a pear tart that bech made...it was really good! we then got to skype with both our families for a while.

we've been taking it pretty easy the rest of the week. we went to a german family's house (Bech teaches their two youngest, Paul and Louisa, and I teach their 2nd child, Charlotte) for tea. that was really fun...they have a great family. Sunday, after church, we had a game day with Dan and Beth and Josh and Emily. Bech and I won Scrabble, but Beth beat us all in Settlers.

but now, i am (kinda) back to work. i came up to the school this morning, planning to get a lot done...i have really just piddled around on the internet, but i am finally working on lesson plans...