Livin' Our Love Song: Updates 2 of 4

Have yourself a merry little Christmas! Now that it is over, I hope you all enjoyed your time with friends and family. Chris and I had a whirlwind tour of the state. The festivities started on Monday night. One of many traditions is having a party with the original Citadel group. My brother had 2 roommates (Colby and Oliver) and their families get together for a celebration with the families. The Howells hosted this years and Melanie fixed us the most amaxing stuffed turkey. Yum! Chris and I left Grenville Tuesday afternoon after the high school girls 14th annual brunch (see earlier post) and a meeting at the reception hall that afternoon in Columbia. Christmas Eve was spent picking up a few last minute gifts and then to church for the 6pm service. After church, we have a fun tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve with neighbors at the Hogan's home. And as always, this year was so fun. I took some great pictures last year, but I'm sorry I don't have any to post from this year. Unlike last year, Chris spent Christmas eve at my parent's house and woke up to the HOHOHO from Santa Thursday morning. He eventually took over the role of Santa and started passing out gifts. We both got some great things from my parents. My mom had our wedding invitation framed and it is gorgeous! We also got some Clemson goodies, china, super-small video camera and case, shoes, and a more than we can mention. My dad also gave Chris a pair of Clemson cuff links that had belonged to my grandfather when he was on the Board of Visitor's at Clemson. Chris said that was the best gift of all. Oh yeah, I gave him an ipod to use when he is running in the mountains. I can't imagine not having my ipod. For lunch we headed over the the Love's next door, another Christmas tradition. Their daughter, Laurie Ann is a Junior Bridesmaid in the wedding and this family has just been so special to us through the years. I'm sure my brother would say that Mr. Love probably had the biggest influence in Lawrence attending the Citadel, and now that might be the campus is which my brother says "I do." Yep, you read that right, Lawrence got engaged!! More about that later. That deserves it's own post, don't you agree?
Christmas afternoon we headed to Estill, SC to be with Chris' family. We had a much slower pace for those next three days, but spend most of our time on the road checking things off the to-do list with his family. Mrs. Georgia (Chris' mom) and I went to Charleston to pick out her mother-of-the-Groom dress. On Saturday we all loaded up and headed to Savannah so that Chris' brother could get measured for his tux and then ended up doing a little shopping. On Sunday in Walterboro I was able to meet some of his extended family, finally! They are really a sweet bunch of folks. After that we went back to Columbia for the night and then another appointment on Monday morning at 9am with the reception hall. OK, enough about out Christmas. I'm getting worn out just thinking about what all we did. It definitely wasn't a relaxing week, but a fun and festive one. We couldn't ask for anything more...to be surround with family and friends, hugs and kisses, traditions and laughter!