Eight Years

On the way to school today, I told Lily about the significance of this day.
The first day, eight years ago, of her Grandaddy's life in Heaven.

There have been so many moments during these last six months, that I have longed to share with him.  I can imagine his excitement watching our soccer Deacs throughout the season.  I know, despite the distance, he would have been here.  In my head, I recapped many games for him, imagining the conversation we would have had.  I feel he would have been so excited about what I'm doing and this brings me comfort.

You are missed, Dad, and loved so dearly.

Finger paint

The girls seem to be up to something that involves finger paint....wonder what it could be?

Glamping

Emily is currently in Honduras on a medical mission trip.  She left early in the morning on Friday (so early, in fact, that is was almost late Thursday night!)  We've all missed her, though I think Lily is at an age when she can understand more of what is happening and felt it a bit more.  CJ was said until she saw the next shiny object.

To help get our minds off how much we missed our Mama, we decided to go on a "camping" trip to Johnson City.  On the way, Uncle Chipper informed us that this is actually called "glamping"....glamorous camping.  When we got to the house we gave it a good showing, particularly with the food.  We ate camping staples such as hot dogs, mac and cheese and smores.  We even camped out on an air matress in the living room....this worked out until the middle of the night when the dog paw tapping on hard wood, refridgerator knocking sound and blinking Christmas tree lights combined with the sheer cold to force us all into the master bed.  We couldn't even handle camping in the living room!

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the fun.

Did I mention that we baked ginger bread cookies too?

Candy Rain

Grown-up Girl Bonding Time

Part of Emily's duties involves covering the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Today, she is on call at their performance of The Nutcracker. We decided it would be fun if she took Lily to the play for a big girls afternoon out. They took the opportunity to get dressed up.....here they are looking great before their big afternoon out!

Chillin' with the Boys

As they find new and creative ways to relax....its great to be a dog

Demon Deacons Basketball

The football season has faded into basketball, and as a young family that goes to watch our Mama do some doctoring instead of actually watching a game, we much prefer basketball! The games are short, climate controlled, and the distance between our seats and parking is much, much shorter. Also, since there are literally as many doctors as starting players at each of these games, Emily is able to wonder up to our seats and spend most of the game with us.

The Demon Deacon was there.....CJ is careful to keep an eye on him at all times.

Speaking of CJ...

Mama, Lily and hamster

A picture of our seats looking down on the court.....notice any doctors you know courtside?

Triple Dozen

If you go by traditional measures of age, then I just turned 36 years old.  I had a lovely birthday with my girls and boys here in Winston-Salem.  Here are a couple of pictures of us enjoying my favorite kind of cake after dinner at my favorite restaurant.

 



The boys were not to be outdone by their younger biped siblings...

Do two halves equal a whole?

Picture this.....I'm sitting in the living room watching the Sunday night football game and simultaneously checking my fantasy football scores. This is an exciting time, I am on the verge of clinching a spot in the playoffs! A question from the next room, "Hey Dave, will you run the Mistletoe Half Marathon with me?"

My response..."Sure." I think to myself why not, we run those 5Ks all the time. Besides, I am on the verge of getting into the fantasy football playoffs!

After a few moments of congitive reconstruction, an alarming thought comes to mind. I send a question to the next room...."Did you say half marathon?"

So that was the genesis of our entry into the Mistletoe Half Marathon.....and it happneed about a month ago....who needs training!?!

Yesterday was the big day, and I'm pleased to say that we both finished the race with respectable times! What is even better is that the YMCA provided childcare for the race so the girls had a really big time with folks from the Children's Museum, animals from the Zoo, face painting and moon bounces to name a few. Here is a picture of the eager "young" racers waiting to get it started.

This is a picture after the race (and our stop at Biscuitville on the way home.) We took the podium to award the Campbell family prizes.....Em took the gold with a time that was about six minutes faster than my own. But lets be honest, I was just happy I didn't pass out!

And the times:  

Emily came in at 02:01:30.381 for a pace of 9:16 minutes per mile

Dave came in at 02:07:06.091 for a pace of 9:42 minutes per mile

http://ultimateracemanagement.com/images/results/2012%20Results/Mistletoe_Half_Overall_OFFICIAL.html

Our First Gingerbread House of the Season

Lily and I came to two key realizations about gingerbread houses today: 1) they are fun to make 2) they are delicious So we figured, why limit ourselves to just one for the season? Instead, we're going to build early and eat often. Here is our family's construction of the first house of the season. We are calling it Pemberly.....Mr. Darcy is the gingerbread man with the droopy red eyes ;)

Oh Commodore....

Wake Forest hosted Vanderbilt for their final game of the football season. The Demon Deacons have been having a rough close to the season, playing several highly ranked opponents including Clemson and Notre Dame. Now, I'm not including Vandy in this list of quality opponents, but they did happen to wonder in at the tail end of a rough stretch for the season finale. The Deacs played well the first quarter, then the fatigue of the season began to show. What was exciting about this game is that we were finally able to get some family to go to the game with us! Gran, Uncle Chris and Aunt Dena braved the cold to share a tailgate that included an unsuccessful attempt at smores. We made it through the first half before calling it quits (this is about the same time the Deacs did as well). It did give us enough time to capture a few shots of our favorite doc on the sidelines :)

Leaf her alone!