a quick trip to GEORGIA

We just had a super fun and rather quick trip to Georgia to visit Jon, Emily, Blake & Charlie and Grandma. 

We left early Friday morning and met them at the Wild Georgia Safari Park. December 30 is Emily's birthday too so extra special to celebrate her birthday with her. The Wild Georgia Safari Park was the Hight's Christmas gift to our family. Super fun that we've gotten to see so many animals this year: on Safari in Africa, at the Asheboro Zoo and then again here in Georgia.

In spite of the rainy weather forecast, we enjoyed a morning at the park on Saturday. Lunch out at Dolan's and an afternoon playing at home. The kids had so much fun playing together! Driving the golf cart is the kid's FAVORITE, also walking Blizzard, their yellow lab. The kids also did some pretzel dipping and decorating.

Sunday we had a relaxing morning playing at home before we headed to the 10:30am church service. After church we enjoyed lunch together and headed home, WITH GRANDMA in our van. Grandma is here with us, in Wilmington, until January 18! More posts to come with our adventures with Grandma.

Christmas 2022

We only captured two pictures of our Christmas celebration, but that is okay. The more we can set our phones aside and be present in each moment - THE BETTER!

We attended Christmas at The Bridge on Thursday night. We always love gathering to celebrate Jesus's birth with our church family.

Jake was off Friday thru Monday. We played A LOT of games together. Our favorites this Christmas have been Taco vs Burrito, Slamwich, and Safari Trumps. We also enjoyed a Christmas movie most evenings: The Star, It's a Wonderful Life, The Santa Claus, The 12 dogs of Christmas. We also played outside, when warm enough, and got in a daily walk. We also were able to see family via FaceTime.

Christmas EVE we used up a Flip N Fly gift card and let the kids jump for an hour. The kids opened the Christmas Eve box, our annual tradition. They each had a set of new pizza jammies (pictured above). The box also said we would be eating pizza for dinner. That evening we joined our friends, the Meshaw's, in their annual tradition of going out for pizza on Christmas Eve. It's always fun spending time with dear friends. 

Christmas DAY we told the kids beforehand, that they could not wake us up until 7:30am. I snuck out of bed at 7:20 so Jake was there to receive all the excitement and be piled on top of at 7:30. We prepped cinnamon rolls, made coffee, read LUKE 2 and then opened our gifts. After opening gifts, I made a big breakfast: homemade cinnamon rolls, eggs, bacon, fruit. More games were played that day. Some of us stayed in our jammies all day. We enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner of ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans, corn and zweibach. Afterwards, more games & playing occured, we went to the park, then came home for a Christmas movie and cookies. It was a wonderful day together.

Found a couple more pictures! 

Serenity Mae, S E V E N

 

S E V E N

We had a full day celebrating Wren's 7th birthday. We started Wren's birthday with cinnamon rolls (Wren's pick) and presents before she headed off to school. A new watch was for sure her favorite gift. We may have left her favorite watch at a park a few weeks ago. After breakfast, she headed off to school with mini cupcakes to share with her class. After school, Lily had a basketball game across town. We went and cheered Lily on. Afterward the game, we headed to Panera (Wren's pick) for her birthday dinner. We got home, did showers and then enjoyed Wren's birthday dessert request - chocolate chip cookie. 

Happy 7th Birthday, Wren. You are loved!

more of Thanksgiving week 2022

Since we had our Thanksgiving meal on Tuesday, our actual Thanksgiving day was a quiet day at home. We had breakfast together and started decorating for Christmas. We were in our jammies until after lunch - so fun.

Our dear friends, Rick & Becky and Steeve, texted us early afternoon and invited us over for pumpkin cheesecake at 3pm. We were there!

Saturday afternoon we went to the Wrightsville Beach Flotilla - a family favorite!

Here comes Christmas!

Thanksgiving Week 2022

We just enjoyed a long weekend with Anna & Claire here.  They arrived late Friday night and stayed out at the beach house. We were up Saturday morning and ready to go see them ASAP. We had a beautiful day in Surf City with lots of playing of games, including their VR, multiple bike rides, and a walk on the beach. We also stopped at the tree lighting ceremony in Surf City and then had dinner out at Coastal Wings & Spirits.

Sunday Anna & Claire came to us. We decorated gingerbread houses (Thanks Aunt Claire!), played at the park, made peppernuts, and watched football. We only snagged a few pictures as our hands were busy.

Our gingerbread village

Mixing peppernuts, a Flaming family tradition

We had our Thanksgiving meal on Tuesday, as Anna & Claire had to head back home early Wednesday morning. We played football after lunch, played at the park, visited the arboretum & the Oceanic Pier.

Come back and visit soon, Anna & Claire!

Family Photo Shoot 2022

We just had a family photo shoot out at our beach house. Unfortunately, we aren't very good at scheduling regular family photo shoots. We had one in 2017 to celebrate Benny & Wren's adoption and also back in 2015. It was W-A-Y overdue! Our friend Heather, took all the pictures. Here are a few of our favorites.

 

Halloween 2022

Once again, we had a really fun Halloween evening at the Cook's annual soup dinner followed by trick or treating with friends. Becky always makes a really yummy curried carrot soup (very orange and festive) and a black bean soup (also very yummy and black). The kids look forward to this every year. Trick or treating with friends is especially fun.

Ella & Haven were twins

A new tradition that began this year, Jake & I were O'Reilly auto parts workers in honor of my Dad who passed away this past year. We have 6 of his old shirts so I am sure at some point the kids will join us.

Fall Family Trip: part two

Saturday morning we woke up at our hotel in Boone, NC. We had a full and fun day planned with visiting Blowing Rock, hiking Glen Burney Falls Trail and driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stumbled upon Sims Creek and had a lot of fun hiking and exploring. Later that evening we hiked Greenway Trail and played at the park there.

Stopped for a fun snack at Blue Deer Ice Cream

Sunday morning we drove along Blue Ridge Parkway again and hiked Cascade Falls. Then we drove to Perry Lowe Orchards and picked apples.

Perry Lowe Orchard

This was such a fun trip and definitely something we would love to do again. The mountains & the fall leaves were so beautiful. We also enjoy exploring and all the hikes.