Christmas 2012, Part 1

This post is a more personal one that should be posted on a Saturday or Sunday. But, I am running behind on my Organization Overhaul (OO) posts. So, I had to do a little switcheroo. I don't think my biggest fans (my family) will mind seeing a few extra Cora photos!

Christmas came and went in one big fun hectic hurrah! Seriously, wasn't it just Halloween last week? People are not kidding when they say that time flies.

We started out the Christmas celebrations with Aunt Kelly coming into town!!

Aunt Kelly was nice enough to babysit so Scott and I could have a date night. Mary even gave us tickets for ice skating that she couldn't use. We were basically as good as Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding or Will Ferrell and his Blades of Glory pals. It had been raining on and off that day so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.




Then Kelly, Scott, Cora and I met my dad (who Cora now calls "Go") in Columbia, SC.

We met at the hotel. Did a little tour of the parking lot because Cora was getting a bit stir crazy hanging out in the hotel after her car ride. This is where Granddads nickname came in. He put her on his shoulders and told her to say go. When she did he would gallop around like a horse bouncing her all over the place. She loved it!!!! She wore Granddad out with her incessant go-s. Now, when I say Granddad she starts smiling and bobbing her head and says GO!

Granddad also showed off his cool new bike. It folds up and fits into a carry-on-sized bag. It was pretty cool.

Next, we took a quick tour of downtown Columbia. It is a lovely town. But there wasn't a whole lot to see. We checked out the university and saw the pretty capitol building.

Here are Granddad and Cora playing their "go" game!

I picked up a whole bunch of acorns for a project I have coming up. You know I love my acorn decorations.

We grabbed a bite to eat and headed home.

The next day, we got up early and headed to the zoo!!! We were the first to arrive and seemed to have the entire place to ourselves. Here were some of the highlights:

The beautiful flamingos welcomed us into the park.

The awesome penguin exhibit made us come back for seconds!

The gibbons were absolutely hilarious. We heard some crazy noises and followed the sound to the gibbons exhibit. There were 2 separate sets of gibbons in separate areas next to each other. They were hollering back and forth like mad. It was almost impossible to take our eyes off them. It was more than impossible to take our ears off them. The sound followed us halfway around the park.

Who doesn't love the lazy koala.

A llama in a cow pen. Talk about craziness!

I had to pose with this guy because Scott likes to tell me that I remind him of a llama. He's a sweet guy.

Feeding the giraffes was the highlight for me!!! They were so fun. Their tongues were surprisingly long and black.

We said goodbye to "Go" and headed back to Charlotte where my mom and Emery would meet us. Cora doesn't like leaving people. She said bye to Granddad about 30 times after we left him.

I'll be back with the second half of our holiday celebration next week!