Our Holiday Photo...

A few days later, our family did a shoot for our holiday photo.

IB Girls...

This year there was a few extra girls along at the Christmas party since Veronica invited some of the IB girls, who fit in perfectly.

The IB girls are very serious about their studies. By the time these photos are posted, the girls will be halfway done with their IB exams.

Adelina and Veronica, who met when we moved here nine years ago, are still close after all these years.

Veronica’s Christmas Party...

For the fourth time, Veronica hosted a Christmas party for her friends. The gift exchange was much mellower as they did a Secret Santa so there was no stealing of gifts as in previous years.

Of course, they did a photo shoot.

Veronica bought her dress in London and just loved how it looked when she twirled. The timing was perfect as Fiona was visiting from the UK and Ziyoda was visiting from Malaysia.

Cooking in Venice...

Lucky Ashlynn got to go with her Food Technology class to Venice for three nights. They participated in two hands-on classes where they made pasta, pizza and tiramisu. They also visited a cheese factory and saw a cake demonstration.

Their hotel was outside of Venice itself, but one day was dedicated to sightseeing. After a boat trip to the island of Murano, where they saw a glass-blowing demonstration, and another local island, they spent an evening exploring the city center of Venice.

The highlight was a gondola ride. Unfortunately, there isn’t a photo of Ashlynn on a gondola, but she did capture this cool shot.

Of course, she loved being there with her best friend, Sophie. They got lost in the maze of Venetian alleyways, but managed to find their way out.

Caught in the Act...

After dropping some quesadillas he was grilling, Jimmy flung them in an effort to throw them into the duck pond. Apparently he didn’t throw one of them far enough as this photo shows.

You can imagine our surprise the next morning when we discovered Kati snarfing down a quesadilla frozen to the table. Honestly, it was pretty impressive seeing her jump up there with her short little legs. Now we just need to make sure we don’t leave any food on our dining room table...

Christmas Party...

For his last activity as the Social Committee Chair at work, Jimmy helped to coordinate the agency Christmas party. He recruited the girls to help babysit the kids, which was a chance to earn some easy money as all they had to do was watch Disney movies with them.

It was also a good opportunity to eat some good food and have some family Christmas photos taken.

Veronica got a bit carried away when she got the lights ready to go on our tree.

Urbex in England...

Rather than exploring Norwich on the day after the tour of UEA, Jimmy and Veronica set off to explore some abandoned buildings they’d spotted from the train south of Manningtree.

Their research told them this was an old BX Plastic factory which closed in 2007; apparently Margaret Thatcher worked for the company in the 40s as a research chemist.

It was pretty trashed inside, but Veronica liked some of the graffiti and colors.

Veronica was exploring this corridor by herself at sunset and was a bit freaked when she found this creepy message.