Christmas Fun: The Nutcracker, Christmas Shopping, and More!

We've had some more Christmas fun this past week.

On a side note...as I type this, it is rainy and windy. Yesterday the high was 78. This weather is the opposite of Christmas-y.

Anyway, Friday evening I watched my Buford Wolves claim their first State Championship in football in Class AAA, which they just moved up to from AA. (However, this was NOT their first championship ever, not by any means. I could look up the stats right now, but I'm too lazy to do that.) I was thrilled for them to win. To say BHS has had a tough 2012 would be the understatement of the year, so it was wonderful to see them win and celebrate something good and fun.

Our next-door neighbor gave us two free tickets to see The Nutcracker: A Tale from the Bayou Saturday afternoon, so Amelia and I went to that. I was very curious about the "Bayou" part, but it ended up just being part of a very brief frame story. (But might I say, my drama teacher friend Kim would have been very impressed with their bayou set. Seriously.) The rest was the "real" Nutcracker, and it was amazing. Amelia enjoyed most of it, even though she (understandably) got a little restless about halfway through the second act.

Sunday, we went to church (our church hunt deserves another blog post because YES, we're still looking), and that afternoon, Amelia had a birthday party to go to. Here she is with her friend B...AFTER I caught them sliding together down an inflatable with a hula hoop around them. I told them I didn't think that was a good idea, not to do it again, and they both said, almost simultaneously, "It's okay. We didn't get hurt."

Monday, Darryl and I went to New Orleans to Christmas shop while Amelia was in school. This was something I had told Darryl I wanted to do as far back as the summer. WELL. Aside from shopping at a Disney store for some things (we don't have a Disney store in Baton Rouge), we didn't really find any shop that we didn't have access to in Baton Rouge. So we decided that at least we could have a really good lunch somewhere spectacular. We had a list of several places in mind. And guess what? Apparently almost all the "notable" restaurants in New Orleans are closed on Monday.

Interesting.

So we ended up at a BBQ joint that was just okay.

And for Darryl's co-workers who read this blog...don't you miss seeing this mug every day?

I must leave you with this one Amelia story.  Monday night, I was doing various things around the house, and I saw Amelia like this:

I asked her what she was doing, and she said, "I'm the Elf on the Shelf." Then, when I wasn't looking, she would move to another location and sit perfectly still like that. This went on for at least thirty minutes. It was hilarious!

And a little creepy.