Christmas in North Carolina

Two back to back trips!  That was an adventure.  We got home from Utah, did laundry, cleaned the house a little, and then packed up to go to North Carolina.

We were on a jet for the short plane ride from Orlando to Raleigh. There were only 2 seats per side, so I sat in front of my friends. They were so cute!

We stayed at a beach house in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. It's about a three hour drive from the Raleigh airport.  The beach house was very, very nice!  There were 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.  3 of the bedrooms were considered master suites, since they had bathrooms attached.  Super awesome!

The house had three separate decks. Two in front and one in the back.  You could see the ocean from the house, but the house was not right on the ocean.  There was another row of houses between this house and the water.  So while we weren't on the water, we were very, very close to the water!

If you can see past my adorable child, notice the ocean!

On Monday we mostly hung out. We made a menu and grocery lists for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day food.

Tuesday we went shopping!  I went to Ulta with my sisters which is basically my dream come true. I helped Elise find her perfect lipstick shade, and that was really fun.  (And she looks so amazing in that lipstick, by the way! It's Native by Urban Decay if you're wondering.) We also went grocery shopping on Tuesday, which I hate, but it wasn't too bad.  Since the shopping was split between me, my mom, and my sister Elise, my list wasn't too long.

Wednesday was Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is so exciting. My family has a tradition where we eat pizza by candlelight.  My mom's family did this when she was growing up, so we have carried it on. It's a lot of fun to get in the kitchen together and get creative with pizzas, and then eat together in the dim lighting of candles and the Christmas tree.

My parents bought a fake Christmas tree since the beach house didn't just magically have one. :)  It was really plain though, so we drank a lot of soda and decorated with the empty cans.  I have to say, I love how the tree turned out!

Lance and I do the Christmas Eve jammies thing, so Lily opened those and was really excited about it. "Clothes!" she said.

Christmas morning came, and it was wonderful.  My family takes turns opening presents. We go from youngest to oldest, and you open one gift on each turn. We go around and around until we're out of presents. It makes Christmas morning last a long time, and it's fun to see everyone's reactions to their presents, and see what they got!

Yes, I am holding a bag of  brown rice.  When Jared was here for Thanksgiving, Adree dropped her phone in water, so I gave them what was left of a bag of rice I had, to hopefully revive her phone. This was such a funny surprise for them to give me!

Model it, Aziz! He's doing "blue steele" here.

Elise made the hat and the scarf.

Jess was really excited about this gift. :)

This was Lily's present. I was helping her. I love how focused she is!

"Night night Dita"

We had more of a Christmas lunch than a Christmas dinner. But it was wonderful.

After our big meal, we all went to the beach for a walk.

The water was very cold.


Later that night, I went to my first movie in about 10 months!  We finally saw Mockingjay.

We had a great Christmas. It was really nice to be with so many family members!  All four Keele sisters were together!  I hope one day we can get all six Keele kids together.

On Friday we drove back to my parents' house in Raleigh.  We stayed there for four nights.  It was nice to not have to rush home and to take our time on our vacation.  It was a total of 8 nights away from home!  We haven't had a vacation that long in a few years.

We ate some good southern BBQ

We ate at Red Hot and Blue as well as Que Shack. Both are great restaurants.

I was cleaning up after Lily one night, and I thought this was really cute.  It looks like Olaf and the teddy bear were watching a concert together.

 
At the end of our stay, it was hard to go home. It's hard to leave my family. And the pictures that follow pretty much sum up our flight home.

Lily didn't have a nap that day, and she was very tired.  Mommy couldn't keep her happy.  She was happy while sitting on my lap, but then the flight attendant came and said Lily had to sit in her own seat.  Then the crying started again.

I didn't really give a crap about what the people around me thought. To be brutally honest, I had it the worst. :-)


All in all we had a great Christmas and an amazing Christmas vacation.  Staying in that beach house was awesome, and I hope we get to do it again at some point in the future.