Pre-Christmas

Just 11 days after our last visitor went home, we were packed up and on a plane to the U.S. for 4 weeks!  Yes, I know, we lead a very hard life.

It was cheaper to fly BRU to JFK, JFK to ATL then ATL to MYR instead of skipping JFK and going directly to ATL so we ended up with 2 layovers.  The flight was pretty uneventful.  The kids slept from JFK to ATL.  In Atlanta we met up with Uncle Adam at the gate and got to do our last leg with him.  

With the time adjustment, we only took our kids to Sacrament meeting on Sunday (we got in Sat night).  The rest of the time the kids ended up chilling on the couch watching movies. 

We had a little over a week before Christmas and really hadn't seen much of our kids for the last month so we tried to packing lots of fun.

We took the kids to Bass Pro Shop to visit Santa.  Funny that there is another Santa in the mall (Bass Pro shop is at the mall), but the mall Santa costs money and the Bass Pro Shop Santa is free (free picture too).  I think this is the first time we've taken the kids to Santa (last year the line was way too long).  The kids weren't too thrilled with Santa.  We managed to get Kherington onto his lap, but Kevin just wanted his daddy.  They didn't want to talk to him (or be near him) so it was pretty quick.  The elves gave the kids a coloring book and a candy cane.  Kherington took one look, said "Yucky" and handed it to me...I guess peppermint isn't her thing.  Bass Pro Shop had some fun toys out to play with.  Kevin did a little bit of remote control driving.

As many other have done, we started an Elf on the Shelf tradition.  In the morning, Kherington and Kevin woke up to an elf chilling on the fire alarm.  We read the story which told us that the elf reports back to Santa each evening telling Santa if we've been naughty or nice.  If we touch the elf, he loses his magic and might not be able to find Santa again!  Then the book asked us to name our elf.  Ours ended up named Sebastian...sometimes called Bastian for short :).  Each morning the kids would wake up and search for his new location.  Here's a few of the places we found him:

Myrtle Beach wasn't super warm, but not cold either the first week.  Ryan took the kids down to the beach a couple times.  Kherington even went in the water up to her waist.  I went and felt the water and it felt more like Pacific ocean temperatures (not the warm, bath water temperatures that we had over the summer).  The kids still loved playing at the beach.  I guess temperature isn't much of a factor for them as long as they're having fun.  The beach is a 2 minute drive from the house so we let the kids sit in the back of the van which they love.

Our little munchkins make me laugh a lot.  One night it was just our family at home and Ryan and I were both not in the kitchen for a couple minutes getting things setup for bedtime.  When we walked back into the kitchen, we found Kherington and Kevin had gotten out the ice cream, bowls for each of them, a spoon to dish it up and Kherington was filling their bowls.  Kinda sweet...and at the same time kinda naughty.

Kevin has some pretty great moments.  He still loves music and hats.  He had a couple pretty nasty blow-outs.  My kids have never really done the blow-out thing.  I think it was mainly due to his change in diet while in the States.

Jason and Tiffany came over from Alabama with their two kids which meant there were little helpers all over the place!  The kids decorated ginger bread houses this year.  Grandma found a kit that had 4 mini houses and I hot glued them together during nap time.  It worked out perfectly.  Grandma is also pretty smart and keeps a container of gingerbread house candy that is collected throughout the year (or leftover from the previous year) so there was plenty of things for the kids to choose from.  

Anytime someone was in the kitchen making something, the kids would hurry to the pantry and grab their step stools.  Uncle Adam let them do the rolling for his chocolate candy cane blossom cookies.  They were pretty good at rolling them in the powdered sugar.  They also were pretty good at licking off any excess sugar from their hands. 

Each Christmas, grandpa makes Cheese Stollen.  It's a Glover tradition.  Kherington loves to help in the Kitchen...and Kevin likes to do anything Kherington is doing.  I convinced grandpa to beautify the Stollen and braid it instead of just flopping the sides over....it takes a whole 3 extra minutes to braid and makes it look a lot more appealing.

We went to Chick-Fil-A many a times during our visit.  It is the only nearby resaurant with a play place.  We went down to one Chick-Fil-A that a member of Grandma and Grandpa's church congregation manages to meet the cow Santa.  Surprisingly Kherington wasn't afraid of this Santa.  The real reason behind it was that someone was coming home from Afghanistan.  His daughter asked the cow Santa for her dad for Christmas and he went back into the kitchen and came out with the dad trailing behind (the dad had been gone for roughly 8 months, his wife had their 3rd child just a month earlier).  It was a very touching to watch his kids (especially the oldest daughter) cling to him when he came out.  What a surprise!

Adam came up with the bright idea to do the Insanity Workout DVDs throughout the break.  We cleared out a little space in the garage and did it each morning.  A couple mornings I ran before doing the workout.  My goal was to do at least one 8 mile run while I was there.  I figured if I couldn't get myself to run there (all the vacations put a damper in my running rhythm) then there was no way I would get myself out the door in the Belgium during the winter.  Most of the days it was just me and Adam, but we did get Jason to join us once too.

A couple other fun activities included, putting up pieces of the advent calendars all around the house, visiting a live nativity scene that a family puts on outside their house each year, driving through a lights shows where the lights are timed to the music, playing games, eating good food (and lots of it...Kherington ate half that container of blueberries when we first arrived), doing some crafts (with grandma) and enjoying being together as a family