The Holiday Season

Robert and I are officially the new job couple.  I'm up and running at my new job.  There is a lot to learn.  Am I the only one who thinks, "I'M NEVER GOING TO LEARN ALL OF THIS!" every time you have to learn something new?  It's so ridiculous because I always learn it, but alas.  I feel like I irritate everybody with my constant questions, but it's better to learn everything and receive clarification early on I suppose.  Robert is at his first day of training right now.  He is the newest assistant at American Pride.  We are very very excited about this position!  He will continue to work about 20 hours a week.

Have I mentioned lately just how much I love our Sunday School class?  Our teachers are so wonderful!  Jason is great at bringing the Word and instructing us, and Andrea makes me feel so special and important.  I love our monthly socials, too.  In November we had a Thanksgiving brunch.  Yum-o!  This Saturday we're all having a yard sale.  It'll probably be cold, but I know it will be fun!  And it's always nice to have friends to do a garage sale with, because I always feel like I have stuff to get rid of but not enough to warrant my own garage sale.

I can't remember if I ever mentioned that Robert officially got accepted into the ADVANCED MDiv program.  He is so smart and such a hard worker!  This will allow him to complete seminary in a total of 2 1/2 years instead of 3 years.  Thumbs up for saving a semester's worth of tuition!  I'm not totally looking forward to packing up and moving in the dead of winter, but it doesn't ever get too insanely cold here, and we'll get to move before Christmas which means this is our last Christmas here! It's kinda crazy/fun/scary to think that at this time next year we could be packing up to move to the other side of the country/state/world.  I'm still rooting for Bolivar, but I know God will take care of it all.

We spent Thanksgiving in Alabama with Robert's dad's side of the family.  Robert had just been there in June, but I hadn't been since two years ago at Thanksgiving.  Too long!  We enjoyed some time at the beach, yummy food, and catching up with his relatives.  We celebrated Christmas with Robert's dad.  I'm all for multiple Christmas celebrations. :)  It's definitely a new concept for me though.  I'm used to just having one big celebration with my parents, brother, and grandparents.  This year we did Christmas in Alabama during Thanksgiving.  In mid December Robert and I will have our own Christmas, and then we will head to the Midwest to do Christmas for real with my family, and then we'll do a New Years Christmas with R's mom's side of the fam.  Fun fun fun!

Robert's awesome new cell phone that he got for Alabama Christmas!  And I'm loving my new tablet!

Enjoying some time at the bird sanctuary at Dauphin Island

Aunt Tammy and Uncle Paul had an awesome bonfire while we were in town!

It was seriously freezing the whole time we were in town

 When we got home we finished decorating for Christmas by purchasing our tree for the year.  We got a real tree last year and continued the tradition this year.  Last year I had thought that we should get a real tree that way we could just dispose of it at the end of the year instead of trying to find a place to store an artificial tree.  While that is a very good reason to get a tree, I've learned that I just like having a real tree in general.  It's really not nearly as much maintenance as I had expected.

I love our tree!  What are some of your personal favorite ornaments?