For family photos this year, we decided to do them a little further from our home town. Manar Gad from Cairo took them for us, and we could not have been happier with her organization of the shoot and the results. Even with Shawn's nice camera, it wouldn't have been possible for us to capture our family or the scenery like Manar did.
Connor has been applying to multiple colleges, and it's been quite a process throughout his high school years to make sure he would have a competitive application. Andrea and Connor spent many hours going through all the forms, writing an essay, getting letters of recommendation, and making sure to get everything complete on time for early action admission dates. So far, he has received congratulatory letters and acceptances from a number of schools including the University of Alabama, Ole Miss, Auburn, LSU, Kentucky, and University of Central Florida. The admission process is still underway for University of South Carolina and University of Tennessee.
Connor's #1 choice for college is Florida State University and their first round of admission announcements was Thursday. We were thrilled to open the message online with the first word "Congratulations!", and we celebrated with Connor when he got home in the evening. It's been a lot of work for him, and we love that it's paid off and he can see that it was all worth it. We are proud of the young man he's grown in to, and regardless of what a college decides, we know he's a wonderful person.
On Friday, Connor received balloons and a card from Aunt Amanda, we snapped a pic along with an FSU shirt that Andrea ordered for Connor. The color looks good on him!
Since we have our Egyptian Adventure planned over the Christmas holiday, we celebrated Christmas together this weekend. Saturday, during the day, I went with Connor and Paige on one last shopping trip to find a few extra things for Andrea.
On Saturday night, we played our new family game "Happy Salmon". I was expecting a chill card game, but the game involved running around a table (we used our ottoman), screaming, and lots of gestures and action. Millie Mae didn't get to use the cards, but she contributed loudly during the game and enjoyed the game as much as anyone else.
Sunday morning the kids got to sleep in, and then I started on our chili before we began opening presents. Andrea did a wonderful job picking out all kinds of special things for the kids and for me as well.
Paige received a stuffed animal from Connor, new Birkenstock sandals, some beauty products, clothes, and her big gift was a new iPad. Her old iPad hadn't been holding a charge and was too slow to do much of anything lately. It is perfect timing for her just before our long flights overseas.
Connor got some Ugg slippers, clothes, quite a few FSU items, and new headphones for his PC.
Andrea got some sweet treats, a new water bottle, socks, an Indiana Fever sweatshirt, a PVIC sweatshirt, and a notepad with matching pens.
Shawn had many gifts this year including an Aviator Nation sweatshirt, PV t-shirts, an FSU Dad shirt, sweets, and socks.
After opening presents, we watched the Chiefs play against the Browns while we ate our chili.
Instead of Christmas pajama pics this year, Andrea decided we'd do sweater pics. Even Millie Mae got a sweater and she did a nice job looking at the camera for a few of the pics which was a little amazing since it was just on a timer on the tripod. Andrea put together a card and the front and back are posted here, along with a few of the other pics that didn't fit on the card.
