beach: post-christmas

"you crown the year with a bountiful harvest;
 even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.
" -Psalm 65:11

a couple days after christmas, the whole family packed up and headed to our home in holden beach, NC. throughout the week, i mostly just took pictures of the sunsets everyday. i decided to take relaxation to the next level and apparently that meant not taking pictures either. here are a few scenic shots i took from the top deck of our house:

















this is my aunt connie. she arrived on wednesday, along with one of my best friends, megan kennedy (seen from the back in the next two pictures).

megan also played capture the sunset with me on her camera.



for christmas, we got my dad a hammock.

here are a few pictures of some people i caught enjoying the hammock this week.



ps it was really cold this day. chris didn't last very long, though he said it was comfortable. also he may hate me a little bit for posting this picture. oops

the day that aunt connie arrived, i finally took some pictures of actual people. she brought brooks a couple presents that he was very excited to open!



and seeing as this was one of the only days i took pictures, here are some of brooks doing his thing. singing on the microphone...

watching hockey...

playing BLLLL-OCKS!



one night, we went out to dinner and i captured this shot on the way to the restaurant. i thought it was adorable that holden beach decorated their streets with little snowflakes. aaaah i love this place and i cant wait to be back as soon as possible!!

a league of their own

"offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." - Romans 12:1

this past weekend, chris and his buddies got together to play some basketball at the turrentine middle school gym. here are a few favorites from the pictures i took. enjoy!

let it snow!

"I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." -Philippians 1:6

im dreaming of a white..... day-after-christmas! ok, so it didn't actually start snowing until late christmas night, but at least we all got to enjoy a good snow day on december 26th! this is the scene i woke up to on sunday morning:









yes, this was necessary... and then my finger was frozen.

seester and i were very excited about the winter wonderland - especially lauren, because san diego doesnt see a whole lot of snow.

mom also showed her excitement.

later that night, lauren and i decided to put on all of the snow clothes we could find in the house (its amazing what you can find in our downstairs closet) and build a snowman!

we quickly realized that making a snowman is much harder than it looks.

and though our snowman was very tiny, he was still an awesome looking dude.



seester was so proud of her hard work (i have to give most of the construction credit to her).



but i was there, so im taking partial credit for at least touching the snow and providing face decoration.

we finished just in time for the sun to go down! hopefully the neighbors will notice our impressive work at the top of the driveway?