Back to Reality

So ... it's been awhile ... my bad!

But here we are, back at home trying to get back into the swing of things before school starts on Tuesday. With the start of school comes the second half of basketball season (Josh's team is 7-2 by the way!), rehearsals for the spring musical (You're A Good Man Charlie Brown) and for the first time baseball season with Josh as the new assistant varsity baseball coach! We're very excited but also taking the time to enjoy these last few days before the craziness strikes!

So while we have a minute, here's a recap of the holidays - We kicked off our holiday season with the wedding of two very good friends, Daniel and Jessica Knox! They both teach with us at Goodpasture and their wedding was gorgeous! They actually asked me to help as a wedding planner for the event so I have no pictures of the actual wedding but here is a shot of all of us teachers at the rehearsal dinner ...



Aren't we cute?!?

After that we still had exams. I actually gave exams this year! No, I did not make my elective Theater classes take exams. (We had party day on review day!) But since Daniel and Jessica got married and wanted a honeymoon, imagine that, I gave Daniel's calculus exams. That's right, Jay Spray, I gave Calculus exams! Of course every class got this speech - "No, I do not know what is on this exam and I cannot tell you what the exam is like because if I look at the test too long all my math anxiety from high school comes back and I want to sit down and cry. That's why Mr. Knox gave you a really good review before he left for Cozymel. Good luck." Pretty inspiring speech if you ask me!

Once school got out we were able to spend a few days relaxing and enjoying the Christmas season in our new house that we are still loving! Here's a picture of our first Christmas tree in the new house!



I think it's pretty awesome! And I'm not gonna lie - it's still in that same place in our house right now! I think that will be tomorrow's task!

We are on a rotating holiday season schedule so this is our year to spend Christmas in Atlanta. My brother had a wedding to attend in St. Louis of some college friends and my parents have both been working alot (Dad has been working extra alot!) so we were just planning on mailing Christmas to Dallas this year. But my super-hero husband had other ideas! As a complete surprise Christmas present to me he flew my mom into Nashville to spend the weekend before Christmas with me! I was beyond excited! She flew in on Friday and we went to see The Princess and the Frog and then Saturday was spent finishing up Christmas shopping and just havinng a ton of fun! Then she had to fly back on Sunday but it was still definitely the best Christmas present ever!

On Christmas Eve we left Nashville for Atlanta for the first ever Thames/Dowdy/Shepherd soup dinner Christmas Eve! Usually the tradition is a steak dinner on Christmas Eve that Josh's dad grills but the weather in Atlanta was cold, windy beyond belief and rainy. So we went to the Christmas Eve service at Campus Church and then came back for soup and the traditional talent show! On Christmas day at the Thames house we opened presents galore and then went to the also traditional Waffle House Christmas breakfast! After that the whole family met up and went to see Sherlock Holmes! It was fabulous, I loved it, go see it! (If you haven't seen The Princess and the Frog yet, go see that first!) The rest of our time in Atlanta was filled with shopping, wonderful dinners, fun game nights and just lots of fun with awesome people!

To wrap it all up we drove home yesterday and after Josh ran all evidence of the holidays off of his little 8th grade basketball team we got to hang out with some good friends of ours from ACU. Brandon and Sara and Cherry and Elliott got to come over and hang out at our house! Brandon and Sara are living in Dallas so it was their first time to come over and Cherry and Elliott had a precious baby named Lofton in November so it was their first time to come over as well! But they live here in Nashville so I'm sure they will be over alot! :)

So, the holidays were a blast! We were blessed by friends and family and fun the whole moth of December and are now getting back to the reality that is January. Bring it on 2010! We are so ready!