Our Vacation

The Monday after Christmas my family and I left for a two night, three day vacation. First we went to Luray, VA to see the Luray Caverns. The caverns were gorgeous and so was the scenery up in the mountains. There was even snow on the ground! We stayed in a place called the Mimslyn Inn which was very nice. On the way home we stopped by Natural Bridge and saw that. Sadly my camera is now broken so I was unable to take many pictures; all I have are a few from the drive up and I have to figure out how to get them off of the memory card. I might post some of the pictures that my parents or sisters took, but for now you can click on the links in the post above to see the places we visited!

Christmastime 2009

My family's Christmas this year was great! My Grandparents who live up near D.C. came down for the weekend, and on Christmas day my Grandparents who live nearby came and stayed the whole day with us. We read the Christmas story of Jesus's birth, opened gifts, hung out for the day, and had a yummy Christas dinner! The night before we went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service which was very good. Here are some pictures from our day (and the days around Christmas).

My new ESV study Bible!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well here finally is a quick update (I wonder how many people actually read this anyway? :) )

As you can see from the title I have been pretty busy lately with school, church stuff, etc. School is ALMOST OVER though, and then hopefully I can blog a bit more during my break! I have 3 finals left to take this week and then I will be free! I have already registered for next semester and I am planning on taking: A course on teaching Elem. Science, Intro to Econ, Child Development, Adv. Composition, and a math class called Number Systems and Discrete Mathematics (not sure what it is, but its a requirement for my major)!

I can hardly believe that Thanksgiving is already past and Christmas is almost here! December will still be busy, but a fun kind of busy. One of the things I am looking forward to is the Access Christmas Banquet/Benefit. Another Christmas party - my care group's - has already occured. I will post on that soon!

Joel is getting soooo big! He can already sit up on his own, and my mom will soon be giving him his first taste of real food: bannanas! It is hard to believe that he will be 6 mos old in January! I will try to post some new pictures of him ASAP.

I end this post with a question for you! What is one of your favorite Christmas traditions? Leave a comment and let me know!

It's about time for an update

Wow, I haven't updated this thing in a while. Well, better late then never I guess : )

Joel is doing great. He is getting bigger, and can almost hold up his head on his own! Some people have claimed that he has smiled at them...I have only seen him smile (a real smile) once...at the ceiling fan : )

My Summer class (Language Acquisition) is finally over! I wouldn't say it was a terrible class (in fact the book was rather interesting), but it is nice to be done with it :). I start up fall classes on Sept 1st! I am looking forward to starting; I do enjoy school for the most part. I am taking; Social and Cultural Foundations of Education, English Linguistics, World Regional Geography, Native American History, and Teaching Health and Phys Ed (this ones online). In addition, I will be doing observations in elementary classrooms for 30 hours over the course of the semester. That will be fun!

After my self defense class ended, my Shihan (the title that we call my teacher by) said we could keep coming when the other martial arts people are there to practice. I have been able to go once a week and keep practicing and learning new things. It has been so fun. In the fall I am planning on joining an Aikdio and a Karate club (both will meet at the same time so I will switch each week). For that I had to buy a gi (the white uniform that you see karate people wearing). I wore it for the first time last Saturday. It felt kind of weird at first, but I suppose I will get used to it. : )

C.J. was at church yesterday! He spoke on our adoption by God. It was such a great message; if you didn't get to hear it, I suggest you download and listen to it

Well that's all for now. Hopefully I won't go so long without updating next time : )

More of Joel

Introducing....

...Joel Christopher Morrison my newest baby brother! My mom and Joel are both doing great.

Summer

My summer so far has been great. It is nice to have a break from a full-time school schedule. I have been able to spend time reading, sleeping in, going to Busch Gardens, going to the beach, etc. My self-defense class is over now; I am disappointed that it is already over, but I will be able to still go there and practice (my teacher said we could come for free on certain days). It won't be the same as a class, but I hope to still have fun. :) My other summer class starts on the 10th of July. This one will require some actual homework :).

The other day, I went to Ashley and Ray's wedding! It was a beautiful wedding, I had a lot of fun, and I am so happy for them!

As of now, my little brother or sister has not been born yet, but I hope that that occurs very soon! I cannot wait to hold him or her, and see what he or she looks like.

I hope everyone else is enjoying their summer as well!

Any day now...

...I will be holding a little brother or sister! I cannot wait to meet him or her!

Zoo Pics

Gorgeous

As I write this the weather is absolutely gorgeous outside! I wish that I could be going out there instead of heading to History class in a few minutes. I am hoping the weather is great tomorrow. A few days ago was my brother Simeon's 6th birthday and as his gift I am taking him to the zoo tomorrow!

School is winding down. It is so nice to see my mental list of projects and homework assignments get smaller and smaller; slowly but surely. My last day of finals is on May 10th; it's not that far away! Just a little over 4 weeks and I will be d-o-n-e with the semester!

New Year and Beyond

On New Year's Eve, my grandparents (the ones that live in town) came over for a night of food, watching "It's a Wonderful Life" and staying up till midnight to watch the ball drop in Times Square. It was fun, but I was sooooo tired and ended up falling asleep during the movie and waking up when the movie was over. On New Year's day, I took Moriah to the mall to do some shopping for a couple of her friends (they have birthday parties this month). Then we came home, and my mom made a yummy ham dinner.

I have been enjoying my time off from school. Last Friday, I slept over at a friend's house because she invited me to come over when her sister was having a party (her sister is one of the girls who Moriah was buying gifts for). Yesterday was community groups for Access. This month, they just said for everyone to meet at the church for volleyball and games. Not many showed up (at least relative to a corporate Access meeting), but it was still a fun time.

School starts one week from today for me. I have one of my books already, two more are on their way, and the last, well I ordered it, but it may be the wrong book! It wouldn't be my fault though (ordered it through the school) and my professor is checking on it today so I should have it all figured out soon.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year's!

Christmas at Our House

We all had a wonderful day on Christmas this year. My Grandparents came in town and the Grandparents that live in town came to the Christmas Eve service with us and came over and spent all of Christmas day with us. I got up about 9 am on Christmas morning. We all gathered in the living room and my Dad read the story of the 1st Christmas from Luke. Then the opening of gifts began! With a family the size of ours, there is a mountain of gifts to open! It took us over two hours! We like to open them one at a time so we can see what each other gets and see the person's reaction to the gifts we gave them. This year, I got 3 Cds by Fernando Ortega, an Itunes giftcard, a couple of books (yay for books that arn't textbooks!), and several other smaller gifts including chocolate and a 2009 calender. The biggest gift was my parents gave our family a Wii!

That afternoon we all spent a lot of time taking turns on the Wii. It is so much fun both to play and to watch others playing. Then we sat down to a yummy dinner that included ham, mashed potatoes, salad, and more! Then we cleaned up, played more wii, visited, and had dessert (cheesecake and pumpkin pie). Eventually we all went to bed.

The time since Christmas has been fun as well. The day after, my Grandma and I went to lunch at Baker's Crust with a gift card that I won at the single's Christmas party. I got the Sa,nta Fe salad witch was very yummy. Today, my Grandma, Alexandra, and I went to Barnes and Nobles; when we got back we and Simeon went for a walk since the weather was nice.

Anyway, here are some pictures. They are not in order and some were taken before Christmas. Enjoy!

Happenings

Last Tuesday I voted for the first time! Best of all, I only had to wait in line for about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. That is not long compared to the four and a half hours someone I know stood in line for!

Today my grandparents from Florida are coming in for a visit. They are bringing my 2yo cousin, Isaiah

Tonight I am being inducted into the Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society at my school. It is for students who have recieved a certain GPA or better in their Freshman year.

I am counting down the days until the end of the semester! The week after Thanksgiving I have a big round of big assignments due and then the week after that I have two finals (yes only two) and then I am done and it is onto Christmas break. Wahoo!

Look Whose 2!!!!

This picture is from a few months ago

Happy Birthday Caleb!

BEDROOM PAINT PICTURES COMING SOOON!!!!

We are in the process of painting Moriah, Alexandra, and my bedroom! I will post pics when it is all finished

We Painted and Rearranged Our Living Room!

Berry Pickin'

Today my family and I and two other families drove out to Surry to visit unother family who live out there. Here is a pic of the berries that me and my family picked.



After picking we went back to our friends' house and had lunch. Then a few of us walked through the woods to a creek that is close by. After getting back we left for th 1 and 1/2 hour drive back home. I took some pictures out the window on the way back.

Independance Day Party

Yesterday my parents had their care group over for a 4th of July cookout. It was a lot of fun. There was lots of eating and visiting. The kids even had a water balloon fight! I didn't join in in the fight, but I still tried to sneak in a few water balloons on the kids. They did, however, manage to sneak a few on me as well :)



Later in the afternoon, we cleaned up, most of the people left, and my family and a few other people left to go see fireworks. We went to the same spot where we have been going for the past few years. It is an area on the Elizabeth river and people come and sit near the water, in the median, and on the other side of the river. We like to get there early enough to get this nice big spot right on the water (we have gotten it every time we have gone). We arrived and spent the time relaxing, eating snacks, giving out glow-sticks for the kids, and waiting for it to get dark. At this place they eventually close off the road to cars and my brothers and sisters like to ride scooters and skateboards. Then we began to see lightning. It got worse so we decided to leave; we had a stop to make on the way back and by the time we got home it was pouring! I am glad we didn't have to walk back to the van in that! We found out today that the fireworks had been canceled because of the bad weather. Despite not seeing fireworks, I still had a wonderful 4th of July.

Alexandra started a blog!

http://www.xandrasspot.blogspot.com/

My Sister Has a Blog

Moriah just started a blog. Check it out here.