Snow!

It started snowing late Friday night and this is what it looked like after I got back from rehearsal on Saturday morning.

It continued to snow all day.

On highway 60 going to Lexington

Tyler and I

We actually drove up to Staunton on Saturday night to see Dr. Faustus at Blackfriars with Megan and Seth. The roads were not bad at all and there was hardly anyone on the road. We had a lot of fun and the play was really good.

It continued to snow all night and they canceled church (the roads were really not that bad...). The next morning we woke up to this:

A beautiful sunny day and about a foot of snow!

Tyler and I took a walk in the woods behind Treemont and climbed to the top of the hill and had a picnic.

Our picnic site

The view from the where we were sitting

Eating lunch!

Drinking hot chocolate!

Beautiful!

Later we met up with Jessica and Ricky and went sledding down a nearby hill.

Jess

Ricky throwing snowballs

Skeleton style

Tyler

Ricky

A beautiful evening

We love the snow and beautiful Virginia.

Christmas in Oregon-part 2

After we got back from Spokane, we had Christmas with Tyler's family. We first had Christmas with Tyler's mom, Kim. She took us to lunch during the day and also took us to see Posy and Tink (our cats we had before we moved to VA).

Tyler and I with Posy!

With Posy and Tink this time

Tyler and Trevor, after we had opened gifts

Playing games with Kim, Kenny and Trevor

It snowed in Oregon! Not on Christmas, but still fun:

Jessica excited about the snow

My Mom

Tyler and I

My parents house in the snow!

Ian collecting snowballs to throw at Tyler and Erik

Unfortunately, we forgot our camera when we had Christmas with Tyler's Dad and family... So, I only have pictures of when we took Madi (Tyler's sister), Cameron and Emily (Tyler's cousins) skating:

Tyler and Madi at Skate World

Tyler taking Emily out onto the rink

The Gang

Cameron

We had a lot of fun skating with Madi, Emily and Cameron!

On Tyler's Mom's side of the family, his cousin, Casen celebrated her third birthday:

Cousins! Emma and Colbi (Casen's little sister)

Casen blowing out her candles

Emma and Casen

Casen holding up the little sweatshirt/dress thing we got her.

We are really glad we were able to go home and see almost everyone. We had a lot of fun seeing family and friends!

Now, we are back in Virginia and are doing great. School has started and we are busy with homework, plays and work. Until next time!

Christmas in Oregon-part 1

We were able to come back to Oregon for Christmas (thanks to my parents) and had a wonderful time with family. We were back for three weeks and so I have a lot of pictures and will have to do this in a few segments...

We started out the Christmas season by baking several delectable treats.

Erik and Jessica making Peanut Butter Balls...yum!

Jessica is giving me an interesting look...

Erik making Swedish Rosettes, which is batter deep fried in the shape of a star and then dusted with powdered sugar. Delicious.

Dusting.

The Christmas Tree and Nativity at my parent's house.

Since we missed Thanksgiving with family, we had a Thanksgiving Dinner the 1st Sunday we got there. We did also have Christmas crackers, thus the crowns.

We had Christmas in Spokane with my Grandpa and family--

My Dad on Christmas Eve by the tree at my Grandpa's house.

The dining room table on Christmas Eve

We took some family pictures and here is Erik, our resident photographer.

There were several cameras going off at once, so everyone is looking somewhere else. This is my Mom's side of the family minus the McKee's and Andrew and Marlana (we got to see Andrew and Marlana later on in the week!). I really missed not seeing all of my wonderful McKee cousins this year.

Some great news! On Christmas Eve, we were playing charades and it was my Uncle Scott's turn. He had brought his girlfriend over for Christmas Eve and acting as if he was going to do a charade, he proposed! It was great and we are really excited to have Missa as a part of our family!

Christmas Morning!:

Here I am on Christmas morning. Tyler put this little Playmobile fairy in my stocking...hahaha!

Erik has a thing with Canada and the Olympics and was very excited about getting a Canadian flag in his stocking.

Sadly, these are the rest of the pictures I have from Spokane. Erik took a lot more and if I get those I will put them up.

We had a lot of fun in Spokane! We played a lot of games went ice-skating(sort of-it was a frozen pond, but we did not have skates) and just spent a lot of time with family, which was great!

Next up, pictures from Christmas with Tyler's family and more adventures in Oregon!

My Little Ballet Class

I teach a little beginners ballet class for little 3-4 year olds because one of our friends really wanted her daughter to take ballet. I have loved doing it! I have only had two girls, June and Alexis, but since I'm doing this at home, we don't have too much space anyways. I basically move all the furniture out of our living room and use the backs of chairs as the barre. These pictures are all of June as Alexis missed this day. June is showing me 1st position in the above picture. 2nd position
Plie (doesn't she look good? Her alignment is perfect in this picture!)We practice walking on our toes with our arms in different positions, her arms are in high 5th.

For Christmas, I taught June a little Clara dance from the Nutcracker. she loves being able to dance with a nutcracker. She actually did really well at remembering everything herself until her mom and Tyler came and watched.

Dancing with a nutcracker

Thats all for now...just studying for finals...

Christmas Time is Here!

All Decorated for Christmas!
We got a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful experience, as Tyler and I drove around the beautiful country side of Virginia to get to the Christmas tree farm. I love picking out a tree, it is perhaps one of my favorite Christmas traditions. An old, 80 year old man owned the farm and he was so helpful and kind! He advised us to walk a lot and never sit down, as that was what had made him so healthy. In fact, I would have guessed he was 70 as he looked so good.
I tried to get a shot of the whole room... It almost all fit. All of our nutcrackers on top of the bookshelf.

A few photos of some of our ornaments.
We tried to get a picture of ourselves in front of the tree.

This Saturday morning it SNOWED!!!

The view from our apartment building.
Our car with snow on it!! A snowy Buena Vista.

Pictures from the little Nutcracker show I was in:

Me as the Spanish dancer in the 2nd Act variations of the Nutcracker

All of the variations (minus Russian), Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Mazipan and the two standing in the green are representing the Waltz of the Flowers.

The SVU dancers! Sara Lamb (dew drop in Waltz of the Flowers) and Aleah Ingram (Chinese).

Kinsey Cluff (one of my beehives) and I.

I took ballet this semester and Missy (the teacher) owns a studio in town and asked the SVU students in her class to be in her Nutcracker (rather scenes from). I was in the Snow and Flower corp and did the Spanish dance as a solo. We had a show last Tuesday at W&L and then this Saturday at SVU and we have one more show this Tuesday at W&L again. It was a lot of fun and I am so happy that I have been able to dance again!!!

Tyler and I also went to the winter ball last night, but I don't have the pictures on my computer yet! I will get those soon.

Until then....we only have one more week of classes, then finals and then we are coming HOME!!!!