Christmas

Merry Christmas! The kids discovered their Santa presents in the morning and got started playing with them while the parents tried to wake up.

Once we'd gotten some breakfast, we opened stockings. As always there were some standards, like Hot Wheels, and some random stuff, like gummy pickle spears.

We spent the rest of the morning taking turns opening presents. Some notable presents for Olivia were an electric violin and letterman jacket.

Carmen got a weight set and lots of typical teen girl stuff like clothes and accessories.

Damon was happy with his drone, electric razor for his fuzzy upper lip, and giant Rubik's cube.

Miles got a subscription to Coin & Currency Club, Lego sets, and a skewb.

Even Pepper got a present, a Lego set of herself. She wasn't impressed.

The rest of the day was spent eating candy, playing, and sleeping.

Christmas Eve

After a crazy pre-Christmas season, it's always nice to have Christmas Eve where we can do our own traditions. We started off with our clam chowder in bread bowls for dinner.

Then we reenacted the nativity.

We sang Christmas carols around the piano, then the kids opened up one present from one of their siblings before bedtime. Sometime that night, Santa visited and filled all the stockings!

Gingerbread creations

We designed and constructed our gingerbread creations on Saturday, then decorated them on Sunday.

Several of us took inspiration from our recent London trip. Damon made Tower Bridge, Miles made Big Ben, and I made a London Bus. Olivia made the Millenium Falcon, Carmen made Applejack's barn, and Amber made an experimental curved gingerbread baked over a bowl, which we decided looked like a turtle.

Christmas concerts

As always, this time of year is full of school concerts, but this year we only had to attend two. Carmen and Olivia both performed in their high school concert.

And a week later we watched Miles and Damon in the middle school concert. Miles was very pleased with himself for getting first chair.

Harry Potter night at the library

We'd been meaning to get together with Cynthia and Aaron for a while and finally got around to it on Saturday. We drove to their place and chatted, played with the boys, and had dinner. That night, they took us to their local library that was hosting a Harry Potter night.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but this library went all out. They had the whole place decorated and had probably ten different stations, like wand making, flying key decorating, divination, a scavenger hunt, and even live owls.

They even had a few celebrities there.

ExxonMobil Christmas party

We must have had a good year, because ExxonMobil put on a huge Christmas party, with tons of activities spread across the whole campus. We started with a "snowball" fight, decided not to wait for VR games, got some free light-up necklaces and stuffed penguins, then took some pictures with the wandering characters.

The whole campus was decorated with giant ornaments and lights everywhere. There were at least four different live performances happening in different areas.

We stopped in the quad and had our pick of dinners from several food stations, then admired the horses and longhorns before catching the highlight of the evening, the drone show. It was mesmerizing.

We played some pinball and video games in the Energy Cube, then saw an ice sculpture, wandered through the Christmas tree maze, saw live reindeer, got some ice cream, listened to a concert, and took pictures with more characters.

We were feeling done by that point, but on our way out we saw the Chairman and CEO himself, Darren Woods.

Our last stop was a tour of my office building.

Thanksgiving

It was our turn to host Thanksgiving this year. The Leflers drove in from San Antonio and we had a fun time hanging out and eating a delicious meal.

Earlier this year we purchased our own Pillo Polo set, so after our meal we headed over to the church building and battled for a few games.

Once we had worked off some of the turkey, we came back home for pie.

After the Leflers left, we decorated for Christmas. I got some new lights this year that can do patterns!

Olivia got her braces off

Olivia and Carmen got their braces on at the same time, but Olivia was supposed to have hers on for less time. She always makes things difficult, however, and ended up having them on for about 4 months longer than Carmen.

This week, she finally got them removed, just in time for Thanksgiving.

"Work Out With a Vet" at AHS

On Saturday, the AHS JROTC put on a Veterans Day activity called "Work Out With a Vet". It sounded cool, so I took Miles with me (everyone else was busy with other activities).

Before the workout, we got to climb around in a Coast Guard boat and a Blackhawk helicopter.

They had some speeches, the school dance team performed, and then we were led in a workout by the JROTC, followed by some training drills.

The headliner vet was our favorite eye-patched congressman Dan Crenshaw. After the workout, he also ran the ninja warrior course without much trouble.

I was able to grab a quick selfie with him as the event wrapped up.