My Parents' Christmas Visit

Thanks to the horrible ice and snow that central Illinois received last week, my parents' travel plans were altered slightly, but they finally made it safely to Winston-Salem on Tuesday evening. Our days together were so fun and full that I have to focus on just the highlights.


Christmas Eve Lovefeast at Home Moravian Church in Old Salem: A Moravian (denomination of the Christian religion, founders of Winston-Salem back in the early 1700's) tradition that involves a candlelight Christmas Eve church service that includes a sweet roll and a cup of coffee - and this is DURING the service. Can't say I've ever found a napkin tucked inside my bulletin before! And, they're really thinking ahead on how to make sure no one falls asleep during the service - a cup of coffee! (in a mug nonetheless...)


Christmas Day: Santa CAN find Christmas trees that are only 18 inches tall after all... We were going to pretend that this first picture was "our" tree, but who are we kidding, really?! (That's the tree in our lobby).



We got some great gifts! Chris will be doing pull-ups every spare second he gets just for fun, and I will be taking an 8-week horseback riding class offered at Riverwood.

Then, we spent the most glorious Christmas afternoon walking around Historic Bethabara Park reading about the original settlers, checking out some REALLY OLD buildings (from the 1700's), and hiking the nature trails out to the lagoon.

Any other spare moments of the day we spent playing games (cards and a new dice game called "Shut the Box" thanks to my Grammy's new hubby) and watching movies.

We made a pretty fantastic dinner (if I may say so myself) - all-natural ham, organic sweet potatoes, broccoli, cranberry/pear sauce, homemade rolls - and even got a (LOT) of soup for leftovers out of the deal.


On Friday night, my parents got to experience their first professional hockey game with the Twin City Cyclones taking on the #1 ranked team in the league. It was quite possibly one of the most exciting games of hockey I've ever been to - with a score of 4-3 in the first period! We actually won 5-6 in overtime (although I was kind of hoping for a shoot-out to finish off the game)! My mom was on the edge of her seat much of the game and my dad definitely enjoyed himself as well! It was so much fun!

Then, Saturday... we went to Mt. Airy, NC, which was the home of Andy Griffith (and was the real-life inspiration for Mayberry). We started off the day with a tour in the old squad car, seeing the home he grew up in, where he went to school etc.

We went to Snappy's diner, which is mentioned by name in the show and ate their "famous" pork chop sandwich. (I will probably never eat a breaded and fried piece of pork chop with coleslaw, chili, mustard, and tomato ALL on a bun again, but just had to do it for the sake of it all...)

After that, we got a bagful of mix and matched sweets at Opie's Candy Store and then went to the theater that houses a live, on-air bluegrass jam on the third Saturday of every month.

Continuing on, we went to the Andy Griffith memorabilia museum and saw tons of scripts, costumes, records, etc. from every production he was involved in (Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, Brad Paisley's video for Waitin' on a Woman, and much, much more). While we were there, the owner of most of the items, who is one of Andy Griffith's best friends (and has been since elementary school) happened to come in and we got all sorts of personalized stories from the man himself. It was amazing!

Unfortunately, neither Chris nor my dad needed a hair cut, but we did see Frank, who cut Andy's hair for years and is also one of his closest friends as well. He has over 20,000 pictures on his wall of people who have gotten their hair cut by him (including Oprah and other famous individuals).

Another interesting piece of Mt. Airy history/economy is the world's largest open granite quarry there. They say that the granite is so glittery that astronauts from outer space have been able to identify the location simply by its luminocity.


Our afternoon continued with my parents' introduction to a wine tasting and winery tour. Old North State Winery is housed in the original mercantile store from the 1890's and makes some great wines - including some sweet muscadine varietals. (Muscadines are these golf-ball sized grape like items that are native to NC and the southeastern US.)


Finally, we had to finish our day in Mt. Airy with a trip to the Mayberry Soda Shop for some old-fashioned ice cream cones and sundaes at the counter. Yum! Yum!



I know this is a long post, with lots of pictures, but as I said - so much fun! It's crazy to think my parents were here helping us move in exactly six months ago - and that we will be packing up to leave again in exactly six more months! It was definitely a little different to spend Christmas away from our extended families, but we couldn't have been happier that both of our families were able to come visit us for the holidays! (My parents left today, Sunday, and Kate, Greg, Mike, and Jane arrive tomorrow - just enough time to do laundry, clean house, and restock!)

Christmastime in Winston

December was full of holiday events and festivities all around town. Chris and I went to Twin City Santa, which multiple people called "Christmas Prom for Adults." With the donation of a couple of items for the Toys for Tots campaign, we had appetizers, drinks, and great music for dancing at the Millenium Center.

The city's holiday parade lasted close to two hours on one of the chillier nights of the month. Luckily, the route goes right by our building, so I could have hung my head out the window if I wanted to (I pushed through and lasted the entire time). Besides the obvious marching bands and dancing troupes with their wreaths and glow-in-the-dark candy canes, there were also some other interesting parade participants:

• Tae kwon do teenagers breaking boards five feet in the air



• Kids on pogoballs and (runaway) unicycles (Seriously, I thought I was going to get taken out by one of them that finally got stopped sixteen inches from my feet!)



• Firemen scaling a wall



• The nativity float - complete with the rear view of these ... well... donkeys.



• The Demon Deacon mascot



• Santa, of course



• And - the Foothills brewery truck - without a lick of Christmas decorations or even any holiday tunes playing from the radio! Just the truck - totally cracked me up!



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After the parade, the city-wide tree lighting ceremony took place down at Corpening Plaza. I popped back into my apartment to defrost and then followed the crowd to the tree. They had a whole line-up of musical and dancing acts performing on the stage, including a selection from the performance of Langston Hughes' Black Nativity that I wished I would have been able to go to at some point...

I was really trying to hang on for the lighting so I could have a nice before and after photo, but after an hour of awaiting the lighting, I could no longer feel my fingers or toes, so I went home. (And had Chris make a stop after the Christmas Eve service to get the picture of the lit tree.)

So even though there was not snow on the ground, it was still cold (on some days - in the sixties on others, though, which was perfectly fine by me) - so yes, it did still feel like Christmas. Especially when my parents arrived - the best gift of the year! Details of their visit in the next post. Hope everyone else had as wonderful of a December as we did! Merry Christmas!

Trinity Part 2: Girls on the Run

Wow! So I am just now getting around to the second part of the post I decided to call "the trinity." I guess a lot has happened since October...

First Pres was part one. Besides working there part time, I have gotten involved with the church we sponsor, El Buen Pastor. Not only did we spend Thanksgiving there, but that is also where I tutor twice a week and where I had been coaching Girls on the Run. I sadly have to use the past tense because our culminating race was two weeks ago! The program spends 12 weeks training girls to run a 5k in addition to fostering positive self-esteem, body image, and health/nutrition issues with 3rd-5th graders.

Forsyth County has several sites training girls, but our program was slightly unique. Due to the economic background of this location's population base, we were a subsidized site (meaning the program was free for our girls, instead of the regular fee). After realizing that the girls were going to continue showing up in clogs, flip-flops, and other undesirable footwear, New Balance also comped each girl (and each coach!) a new pair of running shoes! We didn't have a track; we didn't all speak the same language; we missed several days because Election Day, Veterans' Day and other fall break days landed on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

But on December 6, our 11 girls, each teamed up with their very own adult running buddy, completed their first 5k (3.1 miles)! It was an amazing moment for all involved! The fact that they all showed up to the church at 7:15 am was the first hurdle. (OK - we had to call two of them, and they were 15 minutes late, but we all made it to the start line in time!) Sure, none of them had remembered to eat breakfast, so lucky for them I happen to have a stocked purse almost at all times. Four granola bars (two of them weren't mine, btw), a package of peanut butter crackers, and some dried cereal and raisins later, they at least had some sort of sustenance in their stomachs.

We had purchased hats, gloves, socks, fleece tops, and pants for the girls to wear - and just for fun, Coach Jenny bought reindeer antlers for the festive "Mistletoe Run." If nothing else, we were definitely the best dressed team!

Selena, my running buddy, finished in 34 minutes 37 seconds - which is an 11:09 pace. Not bad for a 9-year-old's first attempt. (And not that I had much to do with it, but she was the first girl on our team to finish! yea!) I had so much fun giving her tips, encouragment, and motivation along the way. Although, I did have to eat my words when the ultimate backfire occurred. Right as we were finishing up that last .1 mile, I said something about how her mom was going to be on the side, cheering her on through that finish line, and to think about how proud her mom was going to be, and on and on and on. We cross the line - where's mom? Nowhere to be found! Some 15 minutes later she comes strolling up to the group, (surprised we were finished), after having gone to get a cup of coffee at a nearby restuarant! Grrrrr! That was frustrating!

But at least she, like many of the other moms, was interested enough to come out on that chilly morning. It was actually really cute - I think we drove six of the moms with us so that they could come to the race too. Some of them had even taken off work so that they could be there! Luckily we had rented the church van...

It was such a great morning! Our last two girls finished in 54 minutes (we were hoping for under an hour), and you could just see the look of success on their faces - absolutely unforgettable! While running itself may not be for everyone, the sense of accomplishment you feel after finishing something you thought was an impossible challenge is unmistakeable. If nothing else, all I can say (in a chanty, cheery rhythm) is "Girls on the Run is so much fun!"