Christmas in Charlotte with Family

 This week, my daughter and her husband came to visit from New Jersey. We had a fun filled week, in and around the Charlotte area! There are so many different things that you can do, inside and outside, in Charlotte and the surrounding areas. 

The first thing that we did was see the Nutcracker Ballet at the Belk Theater at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. The drive into Charlotte was painless, and we parked a couple blocks away from the theater so that we wouldn’t get stuck in post theater traffic. We even ate at a restaurant super close to the theater, which was crazy convenient. The ballet was breathtaking, but the people sitting nearby were awful and and the floor supervisor was absolutely no help. We didn’t let it ruin our night, though. 

The next two days, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we spent at home, checking out the Christmas lights and baking! We even had a Nailed It cookie contest and had a a Facebook vote. My friend Randi and her daughter Jeriah tied for first place. They were cookie 1 and 2 in the top row. Which is your fave? Drop a comment below!

These are the Nailed It cookies!

On Sunday, we had tickets to the Van Gogh Immersive Experience Yoga class! I’ve done this before, and loved doing it again with my daughter! The exhibit closes this week here in Charlotte, but if you have a chance to see it near you, I highly recommend it. If you can go for yoga, even better! You get to take a 30 minute class and then stay and watch the show after. They play the show while you’re  doing the yoga, but you get the true experience when you’re just chilling and watching! This time we got swag bags, but the first time I went we did not. 

We tried to hit up IHOP afterwards for some festive pancakes,  but the line was too long for a table. We found out that Barnes and Noble was having 50% off of all hardcovers so we rushed over, had brekky at their Starbucks and then did some damage… um… shopping…

Afterwards, we went and picked up our hubbies and went geocaching. If you haven’t tried this, I highly recommend it. The app itself is free, but for the full experience it helps to have a membership. It’s not too spendy, and totally worth it. I can’t show pics of the actual cache locations, because that breaks the rules, but here are some things we saw while we were out and about. We ended up finding 9 total, mostly in the Lancaster area, which is south of Charlotte on the SC side. 

That night, we went back out to see some Christmas lights in my neighborhood, this time on foot. We have one block that all put up arches over their sidewalks and it’s amazing! I love walking through it at night!

The last thing that we did was get tattoos. That’s right. Family tattoos. Well, not the husbands, just my kids and I. We have been wanting to do this ever since my son was old enough, and we finally pulled the trigger. 

What did you do over your Christmas break? 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Second Annual Reindeer Dash

 Yesterday was my neighborhood’s 2nd Annual Reindeer Dash and my 3rd race as a Race Director. I’ll drop a few pics at the end, but here are some things I learned:

People can be mean, for no reason, and usually because they made a mistake and feel the need to blame someone else.

Balloon arches are pretty, but blow over in the wind, and then they aren’t so pretty anymore!

My neighbors (most of them) are amazing, fun people.

Crown Awards makes fun medals and trophies!

Dogs are runners too, and I really need a trophy for first place dog next race!

I’m tired.

When balloon arches fall over, everyone jumps in to help! 

Every time.

One of my neighbors roller bladed the entire course holding a hockey stick and finished in about 23 minutes. He’s aiming to beat everyone next year.

Another one of my neighbors solved a Rubix Cube 68 times during the race. He said if he’d had another tenth of a mile he would have solved it 70 times! 

Flat Mama Friday

Tomorrow is my neighborhood’s Reindeer Dash and I’m the Race Director. It’s been a mad dash to get everything ready because our events committee is understaffed and I’ve done all the prep work myself! 

The hubs did help me organize the shirts when I didn’t finish as fast as I thought I would! 

I spent a good couple of hours putting the safety pins into sets of four. My eyes ache!

I had the brilliant idea to add a balloon arch to the finish line. I found an amazing DIY kit on Amazon and bought red and green balloons. During the bib pickup today, I blew up balloons during down time. I managed to blow up 80, thank to this amazing hand pump! It may not be enough, but we can blow up more in the morning as we put it up! 

Whew!

Tomorrow morning I will put out the arrows (it’s raining right now, so there’s no point in doing it early) and set up the water table and medal/trophy table and then get that arch up. 

I will post pics tomorrow or Sunday. I also have a play to attend tomorrow night and a Cookie Swap on Sunday. At some point, I’ll probably need a nap!

Strangely enough, I can’t wait until Monday!

Are you participating in a Cookie Swap? What kind of cookies will you make?