What the Rest of December Looked Like

Care Bear and I went to downtown Greensboro 

for the annual tree lighting festival.

The fake snow part is always fun.

Lots of people

Ice sculpture

Stopped for ice cream at Ben and Jerry's afterward.

We had a coupon, but those little cups are SO overpriced!

Date night at Mellow Mushroom

To decorate outside, I put up laser lights.

When it's raining or foggy, they look so cool!

There's a new gourmet cinnamon roll place that 

opened up recently, Cinnaholic. Andrew and I stopped by.

It's DELICIOUS!

I love it so much.

Looking a lot like Christmas!

The Khats are studying for their driver's license exams.

So our English lessons have mainly been focusing on that.

It was fun to put together this little intersection and use

toy cars to help them learn. Three of the five got their licenses!

Duolingo makes me feel like a pro at the end of the year.

Top 1% of learners??? Amazing!

I completed almost 1500 lessons.

It qualified me to be a WORLD CHAMPION!

Woo hoo!

In other exciting news,

I received an official job offer from University Dental Associates!

Eeek!

This is really happening!

I'm super excited and also nervous.

I'll start in January.

Caroline's Christmas Choir Concert

(alliteration!)

Andrew and I thought it was HILARIOUS

that the Krispy Kreme lights are burned out and say

"OH NUTS"

Ha ha ha ha!

C and I finally took some of our plastic bag sleeping mats

to the shelter where we donate them.

Dinner at QDoba 

They finally brought back their Mexican Gumbo

(but I think they call it something else now).

It's SOOOOO good.

Temple night!

Our temple even has a tiny nativity outside.

I don't start work until January, but have been doing

some of the my pre-employment stuff.

Like a drug test.

The name of this super official form struck me as so funny--

Urine  Chain of Custody

One of our family goals for this year 

was to do service at a cemetery.

We picked a nearby one and took pics to digitize 

so that family members can find their relatives'

graves, even from afar.

Caroline went to the Winter Formal at her school.

So pretty!

We put together gift bags for the students in my class 

at NAI (English school).

It's always fun to put these together and the students are so grateful.

Speaking of grateful, the Khats often send me home

with gifts when I tutor them. These are tasty--

Jackfruit chips!

Care Bear and I stopped at a local bakery

to pick up some treats. They had such a gorgeous tree!

All the sky scratches

Some highlights from 2023

that google put together

My fantasy team has been pretty stinky this year.

Boo.

But I had a big win against Greg's team. Woop!

Natalie's sister's tap dance troupe came to Chapel Hill 

to perform their version of Nutcracker. Neither Andrew

or Caroline was very excited to go. Luckily, Jayne

is always up for adventures, so she came with me.

It was phenomenal and I was so happy I could go.

We couldn't take pics during the show,

so I grabbed these shots from online.

Aren't the costumes amazing?

It was super entertaining and I didn't want it to end.

Quick hug from Natalie at the end.

I got started on the Christmas puzzles by myself.

And then Whitney came home!

Yippee! Yippee! Yippee!

We worked our way through all the holiday puzzles together.

Care Bear's chorus performed at Tanglewood.

Their teacher, Ms. Goebetz moved after this.

All the students loved her and were SO sad to see her go.

We had a couple new puzzles this year.

This one was pretty.

Andrew and I talked Brandon and Care Bear 

into going to the park and playing football with us.

It was a beautiful day.

And we had so much fun!

Baked all the goodies to take to friends.

And eat ourselves.

Another new puzzle.

It was tricky.

And it was missing one piece!

I emailed them about it and they sent me a replacement piece!

Now THAT is good customer service!

Birding around the neighborhood.

Drove through the Sunset Hills Christmas Balls

They never look as good in pics.

But I still feel like I have to try. Ha ha!

The same way I always have to take pics of 

beautiful sunrises and sunsets, even when they 

don't quite capture the beauty.

Sweat Family Circus Tricks at home!

These two are crazy!

I'm surprised we haven't had more injuries...

After Christmas, we busted out some of our

non-holiday puzzles.

I loved this one--Souvenirs from Each State

For New Year's Eve, we just stayed home.

I made us cookies.

And we played games.

Yum.

Happy New Year!

Hoping 2024 is a great year with growth and new experiences!