Happy Holidays!

In order to start off the Christmas season, we journeyed to York with our friends Matt and JoAnn. That’s right, we took Bruno to his homeland. However, I am not sure that he could recognize anything from his heritage because it was chucking down rain the entire weekend. At one point, I had to wrap him in my jacket because he had gotten so cold and wet that he didn’t even have the energy to shake any more. We made the best of the weather and toured as many things inside that we could. We saw the York Minster (the largest Medieval Gothic cathedral north of the Alps), walked along the city wall and down The Shambles, shopped the York Christmas markets, and ate lunch at Betty’s (the best tea and scones I’ve ever had). Bruno even visited the Yorkshire Terrier Pub!

Just in case you missed our Christmas card this year, we put a little picture of Santa Bruno to continue spreading Christmas cheer! Scott and I just returned from the States where we spent two whole weeks! It was wonderful to be home and to celebrate Christmas with our family and friends. We started our trip home with a Christmas party with all of our Charlotte friends plus a ton of chili and pizza. We were even able to catch three home UNC basketball games while we were there! Thanks for all the tickets, Coach and for all the food, Bub! There’s nothing like a Carolina Basketball game squeezed in between homemade waffles and the Angus Barn. Go Heels…and Go Commodores!

We had a pre-Christmas get together with Mike (Katie’s brother), his wife, Cara, and their little girl, Lindsay, who is 3. Lindsay was hilarious opening all of her presents and then trying to open everyone else’s! She would open something and want to play with it immediately. Then, she would open another one and totally forget about the one before! So much fun to see a kiddo so happy at Christmas time!

We had a blast in Asheville over Christmas. We toured the Biltmore House when it was all decorated, ate enough barbeque and sweet tea to sink a ship, and laughed at Scott's facial hair experiments. Scott has been growing a beard since Thanksgiving and over the Christmas holidays, he cut little bits of it off each day. The most disgusting, yet hilarious, stage was the mustache (featured to the right). Real glad that he's back to normal now.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with Wolford, Williams, and Jones families over at Granny and Granddaddy’s house in Mills River. After all the presents were opened, we stuffed our faces with wonderful home cooked Christmas dinner and then realized just how gluttonous we all had been! But somehow still managed to stuff our faces with another piece of Aunt Sandy’s red velvet cake!

So now we’re looking towards the New Year and hoping to get started planning trips to Africa, the Canary Islands, and Germany. Although Scott and I aren’t big on New Year’s resolutions, we think it should be everyone’s resolution to come visit us here in London as soon as possible! Happy New Year!