Merry Christmas friends!

Sitting here on the other side of Christmas, presents opened, tree taken down and decorations put away, I'm thinking back at this 2013 year.  My goodness what a whirlwind it has been.  New job, lots of work travel, some fun personal travel, buying and selling a house and moving...it's almost a blur!

Before we look at 2014, I want to enjoy the holidays for just a little bit longer.  We have a had a great week celebrating Christmas with friends and family, and here's a little peek.

M's mother came up and spent a couple of days with us before Christmas.  We did some shopping, went to Christmas Eve service, had a big Christmas Eve dinner and opened presents on Christmas morning.  Then she went to visit some friends while we headed over to Maryland to see my cousins, aunt and uncle, and parents! 

The minute we walked in, my cousin Kris and her husband called us into another room for a minute to ask us a very important question.  They asked M and me to be Godparents for their adorable little boy!  M and I are so touched and honored, and of course said yes.  Happy to introduce our new Godson, Ryder!

Since we have several photos of the cousins from various different weddings and get togethers, we thought we should finally get one with the spouses, too.

And one of the kids!

This was the end of an era, and the last year that my aunt will be hosting Christmas.  We have gone there for Christmas almost every year since I was 10.  The host for next year is still up in the air, but it'll either be Kris or me!

We took every opportunity we got to snuggle with the giggling baby! 

After a wonderful Christmas day, on our way back to NoVa, we met up with some close friends from Elon for lunch, who happened to be driving north to visit their family. 

Once we got home, my parents arrived shortly after to spend a couple of days at our house.  We opened presents, poked around the new house looking at all of the new things since they'd last visited, went out to eat and enjoyed a couple of days together.

They left Saturday afternoon, and by the time we went to bed that night, Christmas was over and the decorations were packed up tight until next year.  While the holidays can be such a hectic time, I love that we have a week to celebrate and enjoy the season with friends and family. 

I hope yours was as nice as ours.  One of my goals for 2014 is to get back to the blog more often.  I've missed it!  So stay tuned...enjoy the last few hours of 2013!