12/6-7: We started off the holiday party season with a birthday party on a Friday and an adult-only party that Saturday after that hosted by one of my homeschool friends. It had been awhile since we’d been out and needed a babysitter, so that was fun. I already posted my little black dress picture (here).
12/13: The next weekend was Nate’s company party. Man, SpaceX sure puts on a good show! This one was also adults only and “smart casual” meaning, look nice. Nate wore a suit jacket that I have never seen him wear! (earlier post). They didn’t even start until 8. That’s almost my bedtime. We got there a few minutes early and had to wait a little bit, but it was worth it to be there early enough to see all the rooms before 3000 other people also got there.
This is the map they made of the party. A bit fuzzy to read, but who needs a map for a party?. They used a whole warehouse and pretty much worked the inside over. There was a beach area where they had brought in tons of sand and even a life guard, a candy room, a room to paint pictures in (the unclean room), an adult sized ball pit, dance room, casino area, hookah area, food to be eaten, open bars in each area, a little train/tram to ride around on or rickshaws to ride. They had pizza ready to go starting at 11 so those who needed something to soak up some of their drinking could have a little something on their way out of the party. Unfortunately, we left around 10:30 so they wouldn’t give me any pizza. 😉 The rest of our photo shoot pictures and some phone camera pics of the party are here.
On the 14th, we all helped to set up, run, and clean up at Christmas celebration at our church for some women and their children at a shelter called His Nesting Place in Long Beach. This picture isn’t great, but it is the only one we took that night. The kids and I helped in the children’s room letting them make crafts and picks presents to wrap for their moms. Nate helped in the mom’s room picking presents for the kids. We then met back up for dinner and some Let’s Make a Deal time with everyone where we really blessed the moms with some great gift cards and other gifts. My kiddos did pretty well helping even though it was a long day for us.
Our homeschool End of year gathering was on the 17th. This is a great shot of our whole group, but most of the things we do consist of a smaller core group of 5 or 6 families.
We had lots of yummy food to eat and holiday crafts and activities to do, but the kids had the most fun piling up on the little slide that was next to our gazebo.
On the 19th, we had a dinner party at our friend’s house. We were supposed to go see lights afterwards, but Hannah was feeling puny and I didn’t want to get her really sick right before our little vacation so we skipped that part. Nate wasn’t able to make it, but a few of the other spouses were able to and it was nice to have ‘family time’.
Photos from the two hs activities are here.
What a lot of fun we had with friends this December!