Today Mallory, Charlie, Clara, Adam, & I were off on our second Christmas Break Adventure, to visit the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site.  I have been driving past the sign on the interstate for forty years and never been to see it, so today I roped the kids into going with me.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be outside in the mountains.  I got this picture of the house from the parking lot – and yes, we had to climb that hill to get to the house 🙂

Probably our favorite part of the visit – the kids’ especially – was the goat herd.  Carl’s wife Lillian was a champion goat breeder, one of the first to use truly scientific methods of breeding, and the goats are descendants of the herds she had when they lived there.  They were great.  You couldn’t feed them, so they were very used to being petted, but didn’t come running up jumping on you & begging for food. 

Yesterday Lesley and Connor were here for supper, and we had a crowd over for supper to spend time with them.  Everyone also got a chance to head to the basement to see Jeff and Mason’s Christmas village.

By the time I took this picture half of the people here had left, but it was still wild and crazy.  I loved it.

On Wednesday we spent our day making our traditional rounds to see what all the grandkids got from Santa. June is a big fan of Moriah Elizabeth, who is a you-tuber who does art projects, etc. She got a blanket from her line of products, as well as some books and art supplies, so she was very excited.

We had lunch with Andrew & Jenny, and had so much fun seeing what all the boys got: TVs, head phones, etc. And Charlie still spent lots of time on his phone 🙂

Christmas Eve we were at church with Andrew and Jenny, as is our tradition, to watch Charlie and Adam perform in the Christmas pageant.  Charlie was King Herod.

Adam was the biggest shepherd in this picture that I got of the screen showing them performing.  It was as cute as always.

The final room at the South Carolina Military Museum was a temporary exhibit dedicated to the Battle of the Bulge, in honor of its 75th anniversary. I have to admit that I knew almost nothing about this battle despite having heard about it my entire life. It really was sort of the beginning of the end for the Germans in the war.

The boys were tired and hungry, but on the way out they were very interested to see this German motorcycle that was used during WWII, and definitely wanted me to get a picture for Jeff 🙂

Yesterday Adam, Mason, & I went on our Christmas Break Adventure, to this museum in Columbia. I really had not heard very much about it, but it was pretty amazing. It covered all of the history of military actions in the state and by South Carolinians, and was just so well done. It started with native Americans, and went straight into the explorers who first came to the area. Very interesting.

We were very excited to see this display, because Adam’s grandfather’s last name is Berry. We’re hoping maybe they are related.

elated :-).

We had our family Christmas Friday night. I didn’t get many pictures, but did manage to get my babies in one before everyone left.

Wednesday night when I was working at church cleaning up after supper, they were going to throw away the leftover desserts, but I told them I’d take them. So Thursday when I picked Mallory and her friend Emma up after school – no school for them on Friday since that was the day set aside for makeup exams, and neither of them had any – I took them a tray I’d made up of the leftovers for a little celebration for them 🙂

Last year Jeff didn’t ever set up the Christmas Village, much to Mason’s dismay. Needless to say this year that could not happen, so Jeff got it all out, and got Mason to come over and spend an afternoon helping him get it all finished up. Mason’s job was all the detail pieces while Jeff worked on the buildings. When they took me down to the basement to see the finished product, Mason was excited to tell me all about how he decided where every person was supposed to go. Such a special Christmas activity.