Our Christmas, in pictures.

Get ready friends, this may be a long post. Feel free to catch up with us in intervals, if that's what it takes.

So, working at a university is awesome! I get 2 weeks off at Christmas which is such a blessing!!! It kind of stinks because Grayson doesn't get nearly as many days off as I do, but we made it work. Since I get so many days off and this was our year to do Christmas in San Antonio we decided that I would fly to SA a little early. One bonus to this was that we finally got to see Natalee and Dax's new house in Zachary, La. They were gracious to host us for an evening and take a picture of us heading out to the New Orleans airport.One of the reasons I wanted to make it to San Antonio early was to help host a wedding shower for one of my oldest friends, Gina. She is getting married in February, but unfortunately I won't be able to make it to many of her wedding events due to living so far away. So I wanted to jump on the opportunity to shower her while I could when I was in town.

We did a Christmas "Come & Go" shower and it went really well. She was able to catch up with some old friends and was blessed with many kitchen and household items that she and Nate will need very soon.

The hostesses were all friends from highschool and included me, (Gina-the bride), Cassy and Kelli. Audry is another of our friends that helped, but she couldn't make it for the event. It was so fun to do and made me even more excited about the wedding which is in less than a month!

Grayson was a trooper and drove the 8 hour trip all by himself this year. He got a good book on tape and made frequent caffeinne stops in order to make it into town late Wednesday evening before Christmas Eve. It was really important to me that we make it downtown this year to look at the Riverwalk lights. It has been almost 5-6 years since I last went and I really wanted to go. While trying to find a place to park, we saw the Westin Hotel which is where we had our wedding reception 3 years ago. The above pic is of us outside the hotel. It was fun to reminisce about that amazing day!!!

In true tourist fashion, we decided to ride the riverbarge to get a full, detailed picture of all the lights. It was actually a really great decision as it was FREEZING that night. With so many people on board, packed in like sardines, we were actually warmer riding the boat than we would have been walking around. AND our feet didn't get tired either! It was fun and I'm so glad we did it. Twinkle lights are one of my simple pleasures, so I was definitely in heaven.

Grayson, me, my mom & dad after the ride.

We were definitely cold and ready to head back to the heated car!

Since Matthew and Erin recently moved, we decided to spend the remainder of our trip enjoying their new home out in the country. We really enjoyed their home and were very impressed by how settled they were after having moved only 3 weeks prior to Christmas. It definitely inspired me to finish unpacking some of our boxes!

The above pic was Christmas morning when Easton got to open gifts from Santa and some extended family. He was really into eating the paper.

One of Easton's favorite gifts, or so we told him, was his new fireman truck. The regular "little tyke's coupe" would have been fine, but when Erin saw this one that was like a fireman truck, she thought it would be good since Easton's Poppy was a fireman. It took many people to put together and Uncle Grayson was one of many who worked on the car for a long time and did a great job.

While Easton is still a tad small to ride in the car by himself, Poppy enjoyed pushing him around the house and little E enjoyed pushing all the buttons.

We did a Christmas lunch and everyone pitched in to help cook. It was a delicious pork loin with lots of veggies (my favorite). Easton even ate some vanishing marshmallow thingies with us. It was fairly comical and made us laugh throughout lunch.

And we may or may not have a new Saints fan on our hands!?! Maybe this face was premonition of what was to come? The day after Christmas we drove from San Antonio to New Orleans so we could make the Saints game vs. Tampa Bay on that Sunday. Grayson asked that he get to go for his birthday and so we trekked over and rooted for the Saints. Sadly, they didn't maintain their perfect record, but we had a blast anyways!

After the game, we headed back to Ruston to get ready for another week of work (for Grayson) and another week off for Christmas (for me). We extended the Christmas season by having the Allen Family Christmas the following week. All the siblings made it into town and we had a blast. We got together for a lot of yummy dinners, we exchanged gifts, watched some football, baked chocolate chip cookies and relaxed. It was a fun way to extend Christmas for a few days longer.

We had a blast this holiday season and are already looking forward to starting more traditions next year and making new memories with all of our family!