Christmas break!

Tonight, our school Christmas concert signaled the beginning of Christmas vacation!!!  It feels really, really good to be here.  As my friend Jeremy said, teachers always have a goal to look forward to.  Well, here's a big one! 

The concert went well tonight.  The kids sang well...and the ones that didn't looked adorable.  I took a few videos of the kindergartners in the front row.  Pretty cute.

Sarah should arrive home at 2AM tonight.  (she was visiting two hospital residency programs in Michigan).  Tomorrow we leave to meet up with Jim, Teresa, Walter, and Lydia in DC for lunch and hanging out.  Later that afternoon, we'll pick up Elizabeth and make the voyage to Blacksburg to spend a week with the Gardner family.  Around the 27th, we'll pack our bags and head to Michigan to spend a few days with my family.  New Year's will be filled with Hope friends, which I'm pretty excited about too.  So, let the whirlwind begin! 

Video of Christmas concert

Here's a video I made of the Christmas concert last night. It's amazing what a Canon Powershot A510, Windows Movie Maker, and YouTube can do!

Carpe giftus

That's Latin for "seize the gifts", of course. Highly appropriate for this season, I'd say! =)

Last night home group had a white elephant gift exchange. (other events including singing Christmas carols and eating good Christmas-y foods, but those details aren't as important as the gifts) I drew number 14 of 16, so I had high hopes for my chances. My fellow home groupers, however, were quite deft at selecting and stealing gifts, so by the time my turn came around, most of the good stuff was "locked" after being stolen twice. Instead of stealing a mediocure gift, I went for the jugular and opened the last unwrapped gift. I gave a shriek when I opened it! Here's what was in it:
It was a picture of Nana--our home group leader's 82-year-old grandma! Her actual name is Margie. There was much laughter, and I couldn't think of a better way to end the game! As one of the other members pointed out to me, I could always throw away the frame and keep the picture. Hey--that's the risk of the white elephant!

Christmas pictures

Here's the roommate, the dog, and me.

And the girlfriend. =)