"Joy to the World"

Merry Christmas!

I realize I am late in saying that, but I do sincerely hope that you had a joyful celebration and spent some time meditating on the night, days, weeks and months that led up to the most important birth ever to take place in the history of mankind.  I found myself this year really emphasizing with Mary as she was 14 and carrying/delivery her Savior.  In Florida, the song, "Mary Did You Know?" was played like over a thousand times in a month so I thought about her life quite a bit. 

Anyway, here at Walt Disney World, we are well celebrated when it comes to holidays, but particularly during the Christmas season.  I love that Disney celebrates Christmas, and not "the holidays."  So that means there are endless experiences for our family; which I've touched on over the last several weeks.  And believe it or not, we missed quite a few things this year. 

This past Sunday was a a rough day for me, as I spent the day cleaning, doing laundry and dishes and being tired from a late closing the night before while my entire Stubbs extended family was eating a delicious lunch, having fellowship and opening presents.  But, Christmas Eve my parents and siblings arrived to the Sunshine State and so a week of crazy fun began.  We went to church that evening and came home, put Carly to bed and enjoyed a nice long dinner. 

Christmas morning Brian and I were up at before 5am to get ready for work.  Much of the company shortens shifts for managers on Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years Day, so Brian and I both worked 6am-12pm.  It was fun to carpool to work for the first time ever listening to Christmas music under the black sky.  But, it was sad to not wake up with Carly on her very first Christmas.  Trey graciously got up with her when she woke up right before we left and snuggled with her for a another hour.  Work wasn't as good as Thanksgiving, but I did hand out goodie bags of candy to all my cast working and made sure they knew how grateful we were to have them working.  We arrived home and had a Christmas lunch, opened presents, then headed to Hollywood Studios.  We really had a fabulous time there!  

Yesterday we braved the cold weather (72 degrees) and headed to Disney's Blizzard Beach Waterpark!  There were like 10 other people there, so we enjoyed going down slides as many times as we wanted!  Carly took a ride on the lazy river with Gpa & Nana and floated for a mile and a half!  After we freezed at the waterpark, we went to the Boardwalk to get an ice cream cone, and came home for a meal in.  Carly looked pretty sweet in her brand new swim suit but I didn't risk taking my camera.  She got multiple compliments, though.

Today we got up and went out for pancakes this morning (those of us who were awake, anyway), took a trip to see our soon-to-be-hope-to-be-house (I still haven't written about that...), which my parents and siblings LOVED, explored the amazing clubhouse, ate at Sanaa; an Indian inspired African restaurant at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge (my family and I spent time in South Africa, Mozambique & Swaziland in '04 so we love doing African-themed things) and then came home because we needed to get our Camry in the shop before Brian took it to work in the morning.  That was a $70 endeavor that turned into a $662 bill...ugh...so now we are in for the night and about to play some Phase 10. 

Tomorrow is Trey's 22nd birthday, so we will spend some time in the morning at the outlet mall, have lunch at home and then everyone will head to Downtown Disney and hang out while I work.  On Saturday I work pretty much all day, so I'm not sure what the rest of the clan will do and they leave Sunday. It's been a bit crazy with all these people under one roof, but hopefully by next Christmas we will be in a bigger home so it wont feel so crowded! Nevertheless it's been a fun Christmas week and the first time Brian and I have had the same two days off in at least 7 months!

Merry Christmas...and Happy New Year if I don't get a post in before then! :)