Christmas

Christmas 2010 was great for Jeanette and I.  We got to spend a good bit of time with family.  On Christmas eve Sean, Kaylyn and Nicholas came into town.  We spent the evening at the Mitchell's with the traditional roast beef meal and opened presents with the family.  

Marion preparing the meal

Mitch getting ready to get down to business

Ellie taking care of Nicholas

The Landes family

Me and Jeanette

The Mitchell "Kids"

Kaylyn and Jeanette

Ellie doing a little Christmas Dancing

Ellie getting her princess vanity...

...and quickly getting to business on her hair

and Uncle Sean's

and Uncle Dave's 

Tom resting after all the commotion

The following morning we went to visit my parents for Christmas breakfast and to exchange gifts.  

Mom opening a photo from Joey and Kaylan

Jeanette opening her soothing sound machine from mom and dad

Pops opening my gag gift, a birdfeeder made out of my old awards 

Me opening the manual to my new lawn mower! 

More sleeping, opening gifts is exhausting

First Ice Climbing Trip

Yesterday I headed up to the Narrows in Kitnersville to get a first taste of ice climbing for the season.  This winter has been extremely cold so far and conditions were excellent for December.  I went with Chris and Colin, their second and first times ice climbing respectively.  We had a great time up in the Main Gully.  

Packing up the night before

Early morning start

Gearing up at the site

Chris coming up the 1st pitch

Chris giving Colin a belay 

Colin coming up to join us 

Me on the upper headwall 

View of the river  

Rapping out 

Luber Family Christmas Party

For the past 5 years between Thanksgiving and Christmas we host a happy hour at our home to bring together our friends to share some time with them before things get too busy with the holidays. We held this years party on Wednesday and it was a great time.  We cooked up a roast beef in the crock pot and had mashed potatoes and green beens to accompany.  Everyone brought appetizers, deserts and the drinks of their choice and a great time was had by all.  Its nice to have all your friends together under one roof sharing in the holiday spirit - there's always a great energy this time of year.

The Ladies getting things ready

Jeanette's excellent Christmas Decorations

Jeanette and I... and a pesky ex-tenant

Me and Rach

Jeanette and Colin

The Magyars

Camera Girls

 The Busy Kitchen

Philly

Saturday Jeanette and I took a trip up to Philly for the day to see the Christmas festivities.  We went to Market Street to shop and visited the Christmas Village in Center City, setup to look like a German shopping area complete with brats and potato pancakes.

In the evening we went to a little play called the Santaland diaries which is a reading of a David Sedaris short story about his trials and tribulation as a Macy's Santaland elf.  Funny.

Thanksgiving

This weekend was Thanksgiving.  We spent the morning with the Landes's and had a great breakfast that Brig prepared for everyone.

My mom hosted Thanksgiving and had the Mitchell's over.  The food was great and it was really nice spending the holiday with both our families under one roof.

The turkey coma

Friday Jeanette and I looked at houses with the dads.  We're considering moving back to the area and it was nice having the dads help us out in our evaluation.

Black Friday afternoon we headed down to Peddlers Village to meet up with Marion and Brig for some shopping and enjoying the lights.

That evening we had a sleepover with the Landes's at the Mitchell house and were fortunate enough to have the tooth fairy stop by as Mitchell bravely lost his front tooth that night.

Saturday we spent making holiday wreaths.  It was cold out so we got a nice fire going to keep everyone warm.  We came back home on Saturday to get our home ready for the holidays (lights and tree) and had a great time with the family over the weekend.