To continue about the weekend before Christmas...
Aaron was nominated to be Dirty Claus this year for the Fernandez Christmas gift exchange. He chose his name to be Nasty Claus instead. I am so proud...

You might want to zoom in on this one.

Here is part of the family during the Dirty Santa game. It was pretty intense. You can see some people were eager to have their gifts stolen from them.

I fought really hard for this waffle maker despite the cruel attempts from a few in the crowd to steal it. We made waffles for dinner on that Sunday night when we got home!

It was a weekend of parties in NC. Aaron and I could have driven back to Atlanta twice for the amount of driving that was done over those 2 days.

On Saturday we started out in Pinehurst for lunch. We had a beautiful meal and fun conversation. The table adornment was amazing!
Granddaddy was very humble to say something nice about each one of us. We felt very loved the whole afternoon.
On Saturday night, we arrived (not even fashionably) late to the Fernandez party in Hope Mills. We were there just in time for the start of the 70s talent show. It was highly entertaining!
Lenny the sheep gave a testimony about the birth of Jesus.

The Chinigans performed a few Christmas carols.

Peepaw graciously let us stay the night in Fayetteville with him, and then Sunday morning we drove to Lucama for the Flores party at Granny's. It was good to see family.

I have many more pictures and stories, but I am running out of time today. I'll post the rest tomorrow.

We love gift-giving. We have spent quite some time this week getting our gifts together. Some of them are homemade (yes, we know that comes as a surprise)! Aaron is being so diligent here...

to make these....yum.

And I was in charge of wrapping the gifts. Of course, I watched It's a Wonderful Life that night (Wednesday) while making a mess with the wrapping. :) What a Christmasy night.

Jeremy and his wife April.

Hannah and her man Derek.

Katie and Jonathan (parents-to-be of a boy!).

On the right of us- Erin and Nathan.

On Saturday night we drove to Greensboro for a party at Jonathan and Joy's home. I was able to meet some of Aaron's friends from Nash County, and Joy served great food!

We are planning to party this whole weekend...in NC. Maybe we will see some of you!

We have another Cavalier in the family! Michael found out last Friday that he has been accepted early decision to UVa for next fall. So...he's not going to State- we'll get over it. :) We're really proud of him!

Last night my babysitter for 8 years came over with her kids to have dinner with us. I really looked up to Becky when she babysat us years ago, but now as I'm in a different season of life, I look up to her in a more meaningful way. She is a great mother to these 3 beautiful and well-mannered kids. I learned a lot from just watching them together for 2 hours last night. Unfortunately (for me), they are moving to Hawaii in a few weeks, but I'm praying for another godly woman like this in Salem so that I can learn more about how to fulfill my roles.

Aaron and I (Aaron did most of the work) "remodeled" our master bedroom. We are looking forward to many more projects like this.

We aren't even finished with the unpacking, but we put up Christmas decorations yesterday. We played Christmas music and lit the gas logs to make it a memorable night.

Tonight we've had a pizza and Grey's Anatomy night at the Flores house. Since we don't have TV at our house, we've graciously been invited to their house to keep up with the show.

Working on the house this week...I promise we'll take pictures soon. I started my job today...everything went smoothly. The kids are great.

Finally, here are some posts about our Thanksgiving travels! Last Wednesday we dropped all our work on the house and drove to NC to have dinner with Grandma. For Thanksgiving lunch, we were invited to Spring Hope at Mike and Peggy's. She cooked an awesome feast, and we were able to chill out with Uncle David and Grandpa Hunter.
I don't have any pictures for the lunch, but I know Brooke took some so sometime soon I might be able to add some.

Sweet Abby is growing up.

Relaxing with family on a Sunday afternoon...nothing like it.

We went over to Jonathan and Joy's house for the evening, and they so graciously let us stay the night! They cooked a great meal for us, and engaged us in great conversation.

Unfortunately, this is in the middle of our bedroom. We have made a mess in our new house. We've almost finished unpacking, but we started this painting project in our room, so we've just made a mess on top of a mess.
Sorry to be slow on posting updates! We are in Raleigh now, getting ready to enjoy the holiday with family, so we will have plenty of pictures soon. Have a great Thanksgiving.

Today we moved! Yesterday we packed up all day and drove 2 hours last night. It took the whole morning for us to get to Salem but we were here in time to get everything unpacked before dark- thanks to the moving help! We had a guy named KA help in Atlanta, and mom, dad, brother, and grandma were here today to help. It's a mess now, but we have a few days to work on it. Thanks for praying for our trip...we didn't have any trouble on the road.

The rest of the week has been hectic, but I was able to see some friends before we left. On Wednesday Laurel and I had breakfast and I was glad that her son Taylor joined us. Thursday Marcela met me halfway between Albany and Atlanta for lunch. Thursday afternoon we celebrated three soon-coming babies from the OIE office...Leslie, Candace, and Amy,

Yesterday I took myself to Virginia Highlands to paint pottery at Wired & Fired Pottery Playhouse. It was a blast. I spent almost 3 hours painting coasters! It was good to be able to relax and concentrate on something while being able to process all this moving stuff. Hopefully the coasters will turn out well.

Sorry to not include pictures with this post, but my camera batteries were dead this weekend. Just an update- after the interview on Thursday, I was offered the job. I'll teach ESOL to about 20 kids at an elementary school in Roanoke County. Sounds like it will be a great place to work! The only thing is that they need me to start work on Nov. 29...only a few days after we move. It will be a hectic transition, but after these 3 weeks here in Atlanta with nothing much to do and my sanity threatened as a result, it will be welcomed busyness.

This weekend we went out with friends on Friday night for dinner, and Saturday we drove to Clemson to watch State get beat again. How sad. It was still fun, though. Yesterday Aaron took me out to lunch after church to celebrate the job offer, and then we went shopping for the house. We met some more friends last night for dinner and had a great time. It was a good last weekend in Atlanta.

P.S. Happy Anniversary to Travis and Emily Howard today!!

We have had a lot of favor this week. Among many things, we were invited to a State game at Clemson on Saturday, I got a great job lead (and have a phone interview tomorrow), the sellers of our house offered to give more money at closing, and Aaron has gotten a lot of encouragement at work. We also found out that we will get a huge refund as a result of changing our auto insurance from Atlanta to Salem. Thank God!

Atlanta Apartment

This is much better.

Aaron and I went shopping today for home decor for our new home! We are homeowners again (well, we have a contract on the house, but the closing is not until Nov. 17)! We will be moving to Salem, Va in two weeks.
Aaron has resigned from Waste Industries and has accepted a job with my dad at Interstate Batteries. There are many reasons behind this- being closer to family, being settled in one place for longer than a year, and the business opportunity. We have enjoyed living in Atlanta and Aaron and I both loved our jobs and friends, but it's time to get things rolling!
I'll post pictures of the house as soon as I can get them. Thanks for being excited and prayerful with us.

Last night before Aaron got home from Raleigh, I had a chance to go out to dinner with some girls from church. This is kind of a weird picture, but you get the idea. We had a great time with meaningful conversation. I was very encouraged and spurred on toward love and good deeds.