The Holidays, we survived

Ok, Chad and I LOVE Christmas time.  I do give Thanksgiving it's time and respect, but the weekend after Thanksgiving, the Christmas decorations come out and I am all about it.  We had to be a bit creative this year in the apartment.  Some furniture was re-arranged to make room for the tree and Chad had to figure out how to put up the lights around our apartment and not get into the neighbors way.  We got it done.  We were incredibly fortunate again that Chad had Christmas off of work.  We had 5 days of him not going into work where we could see our friends while they were in town and not working, and enjoy our holiday.  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we spent some time with our local navy friends, who certainly become your family in this lifestyle, and some much needed time together.  Our church up here also held a Christmas service which we very much enjoyed.  I hadn't attended Christmas services for years, but Chad and I went last year and this year and have found that we love having it as a part of our celebrations.  Another thing we were super excited about this year was that we had a white Christmas!  Snow started falling Christmas morning.  We've had a couple of snows so far this year up here and it's kinda fun for us...As long as we don't have to go out in it.  It's just pretty to look at and fun to play in.
                                                                               












A few days after Christmas my family was able to come up to visit for a week again.  Mom, Dad and Bryan got up here a few days before New Years and stayed through January 4th.  We had a second Christmas and showed them the area a bit.  We went into Seattle for an afternoon and also went to visit our Aunt Marilyn in Sequim, about an hour away.  Chad was back to work doing duty days, but we were fortunate that he still had New Year's Eve off.  It was our first New Years spent together.  We were also able to have our friends the Darlings over.  They've just arrived in the area from Charleston and we feel so blessed to have so many of our good friends  from over there end up here in Washington with us.  We were also fortunate that Chad got his birthday off of work.  He wasn't originally scheduled to, but one of his crew mates wife went into labor on New Year's Eve so Chad covered his shift on New Year's Day, which meant he didn't have to work on his birthday.  The wife delivered a healthy boy on January 1st, the  first baby of the New Year in this area.  We are very excited for them.

Life has gradually returned to normal around here.  The decorations came down, and Chad's back to work.  The family went home and the house is back to normal (minus the crib that is now occupying space in my living room).  I contracted some kind of plague virus from either my family or Chad so I haven't been back to work as I try to recover.  Last year was amazing.  Chad and I can hardly believe everything that happened to us and how much has changed.  It was an amazing year.  We are so excited to see what 2013 has in store for us now!