First, we must highlight the sisters, fashionably dressed for the season as we anticipate the arrival of our guests.
Our group has been meeting for decades to celebrate our friendship cultivated through AT trail maintence!
Saturday 12/24
We are off to North Carolina to spend Christmas with Katie, Nick, Henry, Audrey, Will and Emma. We enjoyed a Christmas Eve dinner and then the kids got to open a present of two!
On Christmas Day we awoke to find that Santa had visited and left presents for everybody…so I guess everyone was good this year!
It was as cold in Hillsborough this morning as it is at the North Pole, and we found that the heat was not working. Katie was successful restarting it by removing the ice from the exhaust vent and then resetting the furnace in the attic!
Monday
We are off to visit the Hills in Murrells Inlet and Audrey is going with us to spend time with Maggie! After checking into the condo, we opened presents and had dinner with Kelley, Seth and Maggie.
The girls quickly settled into their bedroom and I think they had a very good time! Maggie spent all three nights with us in the condo. You are growing up Maggie for sure!
Tuesday
Kelley joined us at the condo for lunch and then we went to Myrtle Beach to ride the Sky Wheel and walk the boardwalk. Later, we cooked a spaghetti dinner at the Condo.
Wednesday
We went to Huntington State Park and toured the new Nature Center which replaced the old one that was destroyed by a fire, started by a lightning strike! It is really nice and very similar to the old design. Next, Maggie took us on a tour of Atalaya, the Huntington's winter home. It was quite an estate when they lived there and is now an national historic landmark. We walked around the park before going back to Kelley's to get ready to go to Brookgreen Gardens.
The Night of a Thousand Candles at Brookgreen Gardens is always awesome no matter how many times you go! This year we even had a little cooler Christmas like weather!
to get you to smile for this photo?
It worked!!
We had a wonderful time this Christmas visiting our family in NC and SC! Katie, Nick, Kelley and Seth, we appreciate your hospitality. We also love the tradition of giving us experiences for our Christmas presents. We loved going to the Night of a Thousand Candles and look forward to going to Six in June!
Happy New Year!