SCC in Charlotte
Over spring break, DJ and I had a nice little getaway to Charlotte for the night. We met up with our former assistant pastor and his wife along with our missionary friends for dinner at Tupelo Honey and a Steven Curtis Chapman concert. Amanda (our former pastor’s wife), Brian (our missionary friend) and I are all huge SCC fans. Amanda and I have talked so many times about how we needed to see SCC together and it was so fun to make it happen. When I met Mandy and Brian while living in Kennesaw for my internship in college, one of the things that connected us was SCC (plus Mandy is a Clemson alumna as well). So, it was so fun to be able to have a triple date night with them and enjoy some SCC music together, especially since Mandy and Brian will be returning to the mission field in May.
Spring Break 2023
This year our spring break was much more chill than last year….no Disney trips and new puppy this year. We did some things around town and enjoyed one day trip to Riverbanks Zoo. It was a cool day, which was especially nice for walking around Columbia. The girls loved seeing all the animals that we don’t have at the Greenville Zoo. Ava was extra excited to see the mama and baby Koala since koalas are her favorite animals. Zoe loved seeing the Zebras, which are her favorites because Z for Zebra and Z for Zoe. We all enjoyed getting up close to the giraffes. The gardens were beautiful. But I think the carousel was another highlight for the girls. It was a really fun day together!
A belated Christmas
As I’ve mentioned before, Christmas 2022 was far from normal this year. Due to multiple sicknesses, we were not able to celebrate with DJ’s family at Christmas time. And then because of coordinating hectic schedules, we weren’t able to actually all get together until the end of February. It was a late celebration but a fun day together. The weather was really nice and the kids had a blast with the bounce house. Thanks to Nana and Papa for a fun family day!
School Dress Up Days
The spring semester started with multiple dress up days at school. Most of the dress up days were for Zoe but even Ava had one. They dress up days started with the 100th and 101st days of school. For the 100th day, Zoe’s class dressed up as 100 year olds. Zoe wore a sweater dress and a cardigan with a necklace.
For the 101st day of school, Zoe’s class dressed up as Dalmatians. She was most excited about her tail.
Next up, it was Ava’s turn to dress up. The 5th graders put on a fun event at the school. They had a WWII Wax Museum. Each kid had to prepare a speech about a person from WWII, dress up like them and then “come to life” and perform their speech whenever people walked up to them. They did such a great job giving their speeches to parents, teachers and 4th graders. Ava chose to dress up as Josephine Baker, who used her fame as a singer and dancer to act as a spy for the allied forces. We were super proud of how well she did at the event!
The last dress up day for now was also for Zoe. She got to celebrate her very first book character parade day! It was exciting for Zoe to pick out a book character to dress up as and walk in the parade. She was especially excited that Ava got to watch her parade. Although, it was a little sad knowing Ava is too old to participate in this event now at school since the 5th graders line the halls for the kids and cheer for them as they parade through. Zoe chose to dress up like Parker Curry from Parker Shines On. It was perfect for her because in that book, Parker is a ballerina. Zoe looked so cute dressed like Parker!
Terrific Kid
We are so proud of Zoe for receiving Terrific Kid from her teacher for the first quarter. Ava’s been awarded this twice now but this was our first time actually being able to go to the awards ceremony. The first time Ava got it she was sick and missed the ceremony. The second time she got it was in the middle of COVID shutdowns so nothing was happening at school. We loved being able to see Zoe walk across the stage and get her t-shirt and certificate. She’s getting so big and thriving so well in school and we couldn’t be prouder of her.
Family Portraits 2022
We had our family portraits taken this past fall as well. I am so thankful that we are not making yearly portraits a priority. I have so many pictures of the girls but not many of us with them so it is always nice to have this yearly time set to make sure we have great pictures of all 4 of us. This year, we took them at Table Rock and it was a gorgeous background in the fall.
Wetzel Family Portraits
Last year for Christmas, we all gave DJ’s parents a portrait session (don’t worry mom, we know we still owe you a session too). We were able to have those portraits taken by a fellow photographer friend back in September when we were all gathered at their house. The kids surprised us and did great for the pictures even though we started taking them not long after they all got out of the cars. We love having these special pictures of all of us together!
Sookie
2022 ended with a big surgery for Sookie. She has a very bad habit of eating anything and everything she finds laying around. Well, that led to an obstruction in her intestines which became an emergency situation. She was acting very strange one morning (after having vomited a pair of doll pants) and I just knew something wasn’t right. When she sat in DJ’s chair in his office, something she’s never done, I felt like she was trying to tell us something was wrong. We took her to our vet and they saw something on several x-rays that wouldn’t move despite filling her full of fluids. So, we ended up at the emergency vet where they did an ultrasound and recommended surgery. It was a pretty involved and risky surgery but she did great. We were able to bring her home the next day and begin the fun of keeping her in her crate and calm for 3 weeks. The first 2 weeks weren’t too bad because we had meds to mostly sedate her. The week after she had her sutures removed she still had to be kept calm but she wasn’t on the meds anymore so she was not happy at all. We were all so thankful when she could take the cone off and not have any restrictions anymore. However, we know she’s already eaten other things that she shouldn’t have and are just praying everything passes on it’s own so we don’t have to go through this all again. We told the vet at the hospital that we hope we never see him again.
Ava’s Ears Pierced
Ava had a big moment over Christmas break. She got her ears pierced. Unfortunately, that led to another big moment when she had her first ER visit. We got her ears pierced at our pediatrician office, hoping that would avoid any sort of issues. Well, her ears managed to get infected somehow and since it was Sunday night and New Years Day, we had nowhere else to take her but the childen’s ER (thanks to one of our nurse friends for telling us that’s where we needed to go after I sent her pictures). She was so disappointed to have to have the earrings taken out and now have to wait at least 3 months before having them pierced again. But, she looked so grown up for a few days before they got infected. She is all better now and is counting down the days until she can get them pierced again (although mama is even more hesitant to do it now after this experience).
Christmas with the Lindsays
Thankfully, we all finally got over our sickness and nobody else got sick and we were able to go to Ron and Jane’s house to celebrate Christmas with the Lindsay side of our family. It was so special to be together with everyone (missing Eric, Jenn and Piper of course). We got to meet our newest cousin, Ruthanne, and I got some baby cuddles in with her. The girls had a blast playing with Blake, Lucy and Olivia. It is so fun to see all the girls together and Grandmama especially loved having all her angels, as she calls them, together. We just wish Piper could have been there to get a picture with the whole girl gang. We are so thankful for this time with family to celebrate another Christmas together.
Christmas Day 2022
We had a nice quiet Christmas at home this year. We planned to go to church since it was on Sunday but couldn't go due to me being sick (more changed plans). I definitely did not feel great Christmas day but we made the most of it and the girls had a great day. We opened gifts, watched church on YouTube, ate our big Christmas brunch and watched Charlie Brown Christmas. It was a really sweet day together. Of course, I couldn’t let the day start without taking pictures of the girls in their Christmas pjs. Zoe was not happy about that idea but finally agreed to smile when she had her blankie with her. The girls loved giving each other the gifts they picked out for each other. Zoe especially loved the HUGE bag that I used to wrap her gift from Ava...she could even fit inside it. We also continued our tradition of having the girls pick out gifts to give away. They both packed shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child and they also selected a gift for someone their age for Toys for Tots. We always want to make sure they know Christmas is more than just getting gifts. We also did our traditional 3 gifts for the girls. Ava got an Alexa speaker to be able to listen to music in her room (something she needed), the rest of the Star Friends books (her favorite series for something to read), and 2 Harper Iman dolls (thanks to Target for the huge sale for her something she wants). Zoe got a new water bottle to be able to take her favorite almond milk to lunch at school (something she needed), several books mostly related to ballerinas like Misty Copeland (something to read), and she also got 2 Harper Iman dolls (thanks to Target for the huge sale for her something she wants). We fell in love with the Harper Iman dolls and the mission that the mom and daughter who started the company created of making dolls of all skin tones and hair textures for girls like ours who can't always find a doll on the shelf that looks like them. We were so happy to be able to support their company this year! This Christmas definitely looked different than we expected but it was a special day to celebrate Jesus’ birth together as a family.
Christmas Eve
Our changing plans continued Christmas Eve when I started running a fever. It turns out I had strep throat (as did DJ but we didn’t realize it at the time). That meant, I couldn’t go to the Christmas Eve service at church. We were supposed to go with DJ’s parents and my mom. DJ and the girls went on with his parents and my mom came over and watched it on YouTube with me. It was not the Christmas Eve we expected but the girls were so excited to go to the service and they had a great time. Zoe even wore the outfit my mom and I made for Ava the first Christmas after my dad passed away. It is made from his Lindsay tartan shirt. It was so special to be able to see Zoe wear something of his this year. I of course had to take pictures…and Zoe of course was super silly for the pictures.
The best we could get with 2 girls and 2 dogs. But we had to document Sookie’s first Christmas!
Christmas with Grammie
The theme for this year’s Christmas is ever changing plans. We are thankful we were able to spend a day with my mom, Jenn and Piper for Christmas. However, we missed my brother being able to come since he got tied up with work in Florida. We hate Eric couldn’t come but we are so thankful we were able to still get together with the rest of the family (especially since due to sicknesses we weren’t able to do Christmas with DJ’s side of the family).
We enjoyed a really nice relaxing day with mom, Jenn and Piper. We opened gifts, enjoyed food and the girls had fun with the gingerbread crafts that Jenn brought. And we all especially enjoyed playing with Beamer, their new black lab puppy. He was so cute and we loved being able to meet him this young.
Beamer was especially cute when he was trying to help with the unwrapping of the presents. The girls (plus DJ) decided to have a decorating contest for the gingerbread men ornaments. Jenn sent pics of the finished pieces to Eric and he was the judge. Ava’s ornaments won the competition (I think her’s was the 2nd one). They all worked together on the house creation. We had such a great time celebrating the holiday with my family!
Dance Christmas Tree
Zoe’s dance studio sponsored a tree for the Festival of Trees at the Hyatt again this year. We took the girls to see the trees and find Zoe’s ornament on the Dance Without Limits tree. It took a while but we finally found her ornament.
Christmas at Biltmore
A few days before Christmas, DJ and I were able to get away to Biltmore to see the beautiful decorations. We wanted to see the gingerbread houses at the Grove Park Inn but by the time we got over there, it was closed because of too many people. We enjoyed our little time away and loved seeing the Christmas decorations at Biltmore for the first time.
Zoe’s Christmas Recital
Zoe did such an amazing job at her Christmas recital. You can tell in the pictures that she’s watching her teacher off in the wings but she nailed the whole routine. The finale number featured a fun surprise of “snow”. Well, Zoe happened to be right under the snow machines and came out covered in foam pieces. It took a while to get all of that out of her hair but she loved it. We are super proud of our little ballerina!
Zoe’s Dance Portraits
Zoe had portraits taken at the dance studio in her costume but of course, I had to take some of my own. She was happy to take them one day and did all the posing herself, I just snapped away while she modeled for me. The cutest toy soldier ever!
I didn’t buy the pictures from the studio but I want to remember how cute they were so here are the proofs from her portrait session.
Zoe’s Christmas Recital
The first week of December was a crazy one for us with Ava’s art market and chorus concert plus Zoe’s dance recital. It was a busy week with late nights but it was so fun to watch both girls shine doing things they loved. Zoe’s ballet class danced to “The March of the Toy Soldiers” from The Nutcracker. She and her little dance friends were such cute toy soldiers. Zoe did an amazing job and nailed her choreography. She was nervous to go on stage this time but once she was with her dance buddies she was happy and it was such a cute performance. During the finale number, they had fake snow falling…well, Zoe was right under the snow machine and ended the night covered in “snow” foam, which we were still picking out of her hair 2 days later. We are so proud of our tiny dancer!
Ava’s Performances
Ava has been doing chorus again this year. She is really enjoying it this year. They had a small performance during the 4th grade Veteran’s Day program where the 5th grade chorus sang one song. Then they had a Christmas program with the 4th grade chorus. Unfortunately, due to a much longer than expected dance rehearsal and a much shorter than expected chorus concert, Zoe and I did not make it in time but DJ and my mom were there to support Ava (Papa was sick so they could not make it either). Thankfully, Ava didn’t seem to mind that we weren’t there, she was too happy to be with her friends. We’re very proud of her for getting up on the stage and singing. She has a beautiful voice and we love seeing her do something she enjoys so much.
This semester, Ava has also been doing an after school art program at TR Makers Co. They’ve learned different art/craft techniques over the semester. Then they each chose the technique they liked the best to create products to sell to each other and parents during their market. Ava decided she liked sewing the best and made purses and pillows to sell. Her business name was Paris Mtn Pillows and Purses and she did a great job.
