Friday, December 28, 2007

Snow Angel

In our new North Carolina home, snow is a rare occurance (so is rain it seems this year). While we were in Vermont, we received 3 inches of snow allowing Mae the opportunity to check out that wicked cold white stuff.


Mae plays with Cousin Rusty in the snow.
We would like to say it was a success. We would like to say she thought it was fantastic fun. We would like to say she is an all-weather girl. After the trauma of putting on the snow suit, it just kind of went downhill.

Making a snow angel with Mae's Daddy.


Mae's daddy "helped" her make a snow angel, thus inducing tears. She did, however, like sitting in the snow to watch her cousins play and she loved riding on the snow mobile with Uncle Roger.
Cousins Rusty, Curtis and Greg (with Curtis' awesome snowman in the background).


We'll try snow again next year (unless of course we are lucky enough to see it in Raleigh sometime soon)!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Collins Family in Vermont

The day after Christmas, we drove up to Vermont where most of Rich's family was gathered for the holidays. Mae was so excited to meet her cousins Rusty and Megan for the first time! We missed Aunt Cheryl, but hope she had a great holiday and hope to see her this May.

Cousin Megan opening her Christmas present of Grey's Anatomy Season Three!




In addition to exchanging presents, we also celebrated Uncle Russ' 50th birthday (which was in October) with the family. We presented him with our big family gift, a photomosiac made up of more than 4,500 pictures. It took a little time to put it all together, but it was well worth the effort!

Uncle Russ with his birthday portrait.

We all had a great visit, and were so happy to see both Frese's and Collins' families for the holidays. We hope to post more pictures of the family in our Picasa album soon.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Yum-O!


For Mae's Nana this Christmas, we wanted to do something truly special. Being the HUGE Rachael Ray fan that she is, we were estatic to learn the television wonder cook would be appearing in Raleigh to sign her new book two weeks before Christmas!

We waited in line for four hours (beginning at 4 a.m.) to get a ticket to participate, and then waited another three hours for the actual signing that evening. No matter the time spent, it was completely worth the wait! Rachael Ray was incredibly nice and witty and patient (with more than 250 people waiting with their piles of books to be signed), a true pleasure to meet! And the present for our Mom was well-received.

Unfortunately, there were several rules surrounding the book signing, including no pictures taken at the book signing table with Rachael Ray -- so no pictures of our future chef. But, Rich managed to get a few interesting pictures to document our presence there.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We had a lovely time sharing Christmas with Mae's Nana and Pop-pop (Kirsten's parents), Unkie Will and Aunt Lulu. We even got to see Aunt Dawn for a little bit that evening.
In the afternoon, we were very excited waiting for Robyn to arrive (she flew in from Florida that day) and had a second Christmas with her, her mom Miss Nancy, Mr. Lloyd (Robyn's soon-to-be-stepdad) and Gabby and Paige (Robyn's soon-to-be-stepsisters). More pictures of our festivities will be available in our photo album on Picasa soon.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Holiday Cards

Hello, friends and family! As usual, we are again keeping our own schedule in terms of sending holiday cards. It's not for a lack of trying, just an overscheduling of our lives (and not deciding on pictures until late December). Please know they are coming soon, but this year we faced a great dilemma. More and more we have been hearing negative comments about "letter cards" -- you know, the ones that include an update on what a family has been up to for the past year. We are huge fans of these, and encourage those who send them to us to please keep doing so. We enjoy reading what everyone has been doing, and had considered doing one ourselves. But again, we've been hearing and reading people more and more dislike them. So, we didn't include one this year.

We would love to hear from folks what they think. Do you like receiving the "letter cards" or should we people just stay in better contact throughout the year?

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Santa Success!!!


We did it! Mae was a brave little cookie, and survived her first Santa pictures! Less than a minute after this picture was taken, the tears started. Thank goodness the photographer was quick!

Friday, December 14, 2007

Busy Holidays!

We are sorry we've been missing in action lately. A nasty stomach virus has been working its way through the family while we've been trying to finish graduate school, Christmas shopping, get ready for family trips, and the like. When everyone's feeling better (and looking better) we'll be back taking pictures and doing fun things. We hope everyone else is staying healthy and enjoying this fun time of year!

Friday, December 7, 2007

Surprise gifts for Nana!

Our family (including Pop-Pop, Aunt Lulu and Unkie Will) have been involved in a secret Christmas present for Mae's Nana. We are afraid she might be checking this blog so we can't say what it is all about yet, but we will post pictures soon! Stay tuned!

Monday, December 3, 2007

Holidays at Williamsburg


While we were in town for the wedding, we took some time to wander town with Jennifer (who came down to help watch Mae for the weekend). Williamsburg was preparing for its Grand Illumination, but we were just trying to keep warm!

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Jason and Cheryl's Wedding

We spent a wonderful (and busy) weekend in Williamsburg for Cheryl and Jason Copper's wedding. Everything was just beautiful, and we were so happy to meet Cheryl, her daughter Lauren, and Cheryl's great family as well as catch up with the Coopers! We weren't able to get many pictures, but Jason is planning on posting more pictures on his website soon.