Christmas, Christmas and more Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas - thank God! We had Christmas with my sisters on the 13th, then Christmas in the cottage 16th, Christmas with the Sawyers 23rd, Christmas at home 24th, and Christmas with the Hucks 25th! Going back and forth to Columbia was worth it especially when we woke up at home to find the fireplace doors opened and toys all around on Christmas morning. Despite some evil bug that luckily for me was a jump start for my New Years diet, all was as close to perfect as can be. The four Hucks were in our first Christmas play (with about 25 other folks) at church and three of our cottage girls got to take part as well. Elissa shared her memorization passage from Matthew several times and even brought a few of us to tears. And as for presents... well we all got more than we deserved. Now if I can manage to give away more than half of what was already here I'll be happy. Thank you family! Thank you God for every good thing!

December with the Hucks

[OK well the Picture messed up loading it and I have to wait until I'm back at the cottage to load it... sorry!]

Wow... this month has held a lot of special events and Christmas is a week away... there are pictures of Adam and Elissa taking pictures of each other around our little tree. There are pics of Isabella at gymnastics observation. There are pictures from the 5K Reindeer Run where I ran with my pals Cynthia and Laura and had my greatest fans bundled up on the sidelines. There is also a quick pic from Elissa's Christmas Program at her 4K where she recited a large passage from Luke along with her class. It was great! The girls also tried a tough picture ala James Bond???

Lake Days

Here we are on beautiful Lake Murray! We had a really nice day with Mona, April and all of our girls. It was nice to hold on to summer for one more weekend. The girls swam and played and we snacked and hung out. It was a terrific day and we all slept very well that night!

(Click on the pic to see it bigger and better)
This is our day trip to Folly Beach! The weather was beautiful - It was a good outing and we all enjoyed it quite a bit. Isabella and Elissa both love the ocean - Elissa the sand and Bella the water... all of our big girls still enjoy it too and we were thrilled to get in one more beach trip before the summer starts to fade.

 

check out the Collins blog...

Under Team Hucks (on the left), check out the Collins Family 3 blog for a ton more pics of our vacation! Thanks to our cool teammates for a lot of hard work!!!

Happy First Day of School

What a great day! Isabella was thrilled with her first day of 1st grade! She prepared the night before by reading one of her very favorite books, Chrysanthemum. Wouldn't you know that the book of the day for the first day of school was none other than Chrysanthemum. She even got to color a picture of her. She made new friends but her favorite was Jeremy, a boy she met at VBS this summer. Some might laugh at me seeing God in every little thing but my prayer has been that Bella would meet a friend that was honest and kind. A kid from VBS is a good start :)

Elissa struggled with it a little today. She asked where the girls were, Bella especially. She said she wanted to go to school too. She starts K4 next Monday so she will be very happy soon!

Vacation blog...

Check out the Berkele Blog at berkelecottage.blogspot.com because I am too tired to write anything right now :)