The "I'm a little homesick" blog.

Something really cool happened over this last Christmas Vacation

I went home and got to see my family and friends!!!

Here's some amazing photos of that fantastic adventure.

My family :-)

My dog :-)

I think she missed me :-)

What do you think?

 My amazing family picked me up from the airport and immediately took me to Chik-Fil-A which was EXACTLY what I wanted :-)  Then we went home, took a bunch of pictures and then Noah came home :-) Then we played Wii and hung out and talked and talked and talked.  Then my Mom, being the sweetest thing in the world, ran me a hot bath with candles all over the bathroom and I proceeded to pass out for a couple of hours (I hadn't had a bath in forever!!)  Then it was time for bed.

I'm going to be really honest.  These photos are probably not in the best order because 1.  I'm terrible about organizing photos and 2. I have no real concept of time from when I was home (like I usually do. . .) it was just one, single, amazing day.

Mom and Amanda

Adam and Noah opening their early Christmas gift, these crazy helicopters that were awesome :-)

Isn't my mom lovely???

Christmas cookies!  (a small fraction of what my mom had made.)

Random close up of our beautiful tree :-)

Mom and I decorating creamy wafers, with the traditional Spittle recipe: one batch of cookies to three batches of icing. . .we still ran out of icing before cookies. . .

Jonathan came over for game night!  I think this was Christmas Eve. . .

Wooda wooda :-)

Christmas Morning!!!

Mom and Dad :-)

Christmas morning breakfast pt 1: strata, sausage balls, bacon, and Shirley Temples :-)

Adam and Amanda opening presents.

Noah being awesome

My beautiful mother :-)

Noah and I are basically the coolest things in the world.  Don't question it.

Christmas morning breakfast pt 2: sticky buns (the best things you can possibly eat.  The challenge is to not eat them until you actually die.)

Mom and her dog Lily :-)

We've been opening presents for three hours!  :-)

Grandma and Dad. . .Grandma is opening one of several wrapped gift cards to her favorite restaurant.  

Hat and scarf from Grandma :-)

In the days that followed, amazing things happened :-)

I missed /thanksgiving dinner, so Mom made one for me :-)

I miss my mom.

Christmas cookies!!

Pumpkin pie :-)

Amazing pumpkin. . .roll?  So good.

My Grandma's chocolate peanut butter fudge :-)

Cookies :-)

 K, listen.  One of the most amazing traditions that my family has is game day.  Every Sunday my family has a big lunch after church and whoever wants to come is invited.  After lunch, we play games and it's beyond awesome.  I really missed it.  So I made my family play games every single night :-)

Wits and Wagers.  My friend Kevin is very good at this game.  I am not.  Here's a vid intro about this game:

Games I made them play. . .all except Trivial Pursuit.  

While we're at it, here are a few video highlights of the games that we played.

One game we played was Truth Be Told. . .where the truth that came out that Kevin needs to work on his conversational skills:

The best game of all, perhaps the best game ever made in the whole universe (at least for my family. . and coming second ONLY to Buzz Words as long as Kevin and I are on the same team) is Things.

This game is amazing.  There are clues like "Things I wish I could do in my sleep."  Or "Things you shouldn't do on a bus" like that.  And then everyone writes something down that he thinks that should or shouldn't be done according to the card and then one person reads them all and then everyone has to guess who said each one.  I LOVE this game but I NEVER win because usually whatever I write is guessed first, but I don't care because the game is amazing.

Now, in some homes maybe people will try to be as logical as possible and perhaps when asked to write "Things you should not do on a bus" they will say something like "stiff the driver" or something that, you know, makes sense.  In my house, however, we write things like "Smuggle Mexicans" or "Cook something with jumper cables"

Which makes this game epic.

Eventually, after you play for about an hour or so, some people's responses keep showing up after different prompts.  A few in particular on this particular night were something to do with smuggling Mexicans, something to do with jumper cables, and one where you actually had to make the sound of a turkey.  I know what you're thinking!  No matter what the situation, these answers will always be correct!  And you're right about that.

On the last round of the the last game of Things the clue was "Things I want to try" and these clues, read in perfect order by Amanda, literally left all of us peeing our pants laughing.  Because the internet hates me it will not let me upload this video.  But I need you to understand that is it the best thing you have ever seen.  In fact, I think I'm going to upload it to youtube with a link here so that you can watch it if you desire.

Here it is:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alzNWnruy6w&feature=youtu.be
Even if you don't understand exactly what is happening in this video, I need you to know this is how awesome my family is and how we sound 100% of the time we're together.  What a cool family.
(PS  this is best viewed at full screen and at the highest possible volume.)

Because my parents are awesome, they have epic Guitar Hero battles!

Nailed it!

One night I made my family "American-Korean Dinner!" and forced them to eat with chop sticks.  Mwa ha haa

I think Adam didn't really enjoy it. . .

Love you Dad!  Thank you for eating my terrible cooking!!  :-)

Kevin, Adam and I :-)

My awesome brother.

Kevin rocking it at. . .I think golf.

Legendary boxing battle.

Get 'em!

Kevin and I

Adam and Kevin. . .:-)

Here are some random photos from the tail end of 2011.

Eponine, chilling.

Ismene, chillin'

Adam and I making our serious faces at a Japanese steak house for New Year's Eve

Mom and I also making our serious faces at the same Japanese steak house on New Year's Eve.

This was actually bulgogi!  Of course, it's called something else in Japanese. . .

One morning, Mom made French Toast. . .Casserole!  

AND strata!

And it was amazing!

THEN we went to  Frankie's with Kevin to play arcade games, laser tag, and mini golf. . .oh!  and go carts. :-)  (we're grown ups. . .)

For some reason, most of the photos were HUGE just these three were okay.  Will post the rest of facebook.

On the putt putt green. . .what a beautiful day!

Nothing like some dry waterfall drama :-)

Noah had to go back to base New Year's Day. . .so we had to say goodbye.  To keep me from getting overemotional, he took out his gun.

Dude, you're amazing.

Freaking cool.

Best siblings ever!

 After about a week, Mom let me leave the house!  :-)  So, it was time to start driving around and seeing people :-)

My good friend Karlie and I at Blueberry Frog, the best place yogurt place in Greenville.

Cool kid, that Karlie :-)

Sarah :-)  Didn't take too many pictures with her, not sure why.  Next time, dude!

My parents pulling the "kimchi!" pose :-)

Egg nog :-)

Noah and I in his car :-)

Finally driving again!  :-)

I KNOW there are more photos, but I can't seem to find them. . .I am terrible with that.  But I will post more as I find them (plus, they will be lovely little surprises for me won't they^^)

Anyway, that was a rather unorganized recollection of my amazing time at home.

My family is amazing.  My friends are awesome.  And it was so nice to see everyone, and all of my old coworkers again :-)  Thank you so much for all of your support and for forgiving me for being such a terrible person for not staying in touch (I'm forgiven, right?  Please?)

Love you all :-)

Thank you for reading :-)

AH!  PS:  Noah likes to make this emoticon

 ;-( 

for some reason. . .so I wanted to know what that looked like in real life.  Here it is!

Cheers!