Christmas

Dec 22 - 26

Anthony deserved some time off, so Clara and I drove to Nashville and stayed with Dad until the day after Christmas.

Dad celebrates his 99th Christmas

Dec 26

This morning we left Dads and drove to Cary to help the kids (big and little) celebrate Christmas.

 That is Evan holding MY CHACOS CAUSE I GOT CHACOS FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Anna and Evan came back to Beaufort with us for a week of fun.

Saturday, Dec 27

The weather is very cooperative, so we go over to Morehead City for a supposed "ice rink" that has been set up downtown.  It turns out the ice rink is just plastic panels laid on the ground and kept slick with soap.  However, the kids were able to stand up - most of the time.

We were 'ice walking' cause it was pretty hard to glide on wax. At least we can say we did it!

Sun, Dec 28

Another nice weather day - the last of 2014 and we're out kayaking.  We had tried earlier to take the power boat out, but the engine wasn't running well, so we abandoned that idea.

 Mimi and I are wearing our matching Beaufort sweatshirts!

 This is Evan being a total idiot and deciding 'Hey! It's below 50 wanna hear a great idea? Lets jump in Taylors Creek!' Then he had to kayak home wet and cold.

Later that night Mimi took Evan and I to the light show where we got a little boy to go under the arch and dance with us!

Tues, Dec 30

Mimi and the kids take an art class.

We decided that art was not our field of expertise, but it was still fun

Scottie and her son, Matt came over after the light show and we watched Despicable Me, this was the first cartoon/ movie that Papa has managed to stay awake during!

Thurs, Jan 1 2015

Anna and Evan decided this morning, after a lot of thought (and trepidation) that they are going to take the "Polar Plunge".  The "Polar Plunge" is a fund raiser held on Atlantic Beach where you pay money to jump into the ocean when the air temperature is 44 degrees and the water temperature is 50 degrees.

It turned out to be quite an event, with what seemed like hundreds of people participating,  split about evenly between people who took the plunge and people who watched people take the plunge.  Clara and I were among the latter.

Evan and I were not so sure about actually jumping in on the motor home ride over after feeling how cold it was outside, but once we got to the beach and saw all those people so excited there was no way we were backing out. 

We each went deeper our first time in... all the pictures Papa took were of our third time in and by that time we were COLD! Notice that both Evan and I have wet hair because we went all the way under!

Ohhhhh!  This is cooooollllllddddd!

You couldn't think. I forgot to look for the camera or anything. Your legs feel like you're laying on needles, your head is throbbing and you'll find that breathing is very difficult.

There were seemingly hundreds of people who decided to take the plunge.

They ended up raising over 6000 dollars, we guessed there were 300-400 people at the event!

 Evan and I were in some SERIOUS PAIN here.

After the plunge, we went back to the motor home, which was toasty warm, took showers and had hot cocoa

Then, as a special treat, we went to El's  (where the motor home seemed to take up all the parking lot) and had a special treat.  We were now getting warm - finally.

No. Papa is getting warm. Evan and I are still chilled tonight at 8:00. I don't know if I'll ever be warm again *cue dramatic music*

Just for the record- this was my 3rd time in so yeah. I didn't go up to my shoulders as I had the first two times cause I was COLD. I put my head under the first time, went up to my shoulders the second time but by the third time I was in some serious pain and decided to not freeze my lungs. You can see the pain on my face as the time in the water goes on!