Off to Pearl River

We headed out for Pearl River for our Christmas trip to visit with Jeff and family and the entire Moyle family. Arriving in Pearl River about 1:30pm local time, we dropped by the house to see what the family was doing.

Elyse was also into wrapping Christmas presents, above. She was wrapping a pillow she had made and hand stitched.

Ashleigh was outside working on a painting of the Calgary skyline with its space needle. She was working on canvas provided by Louis Socarras, their youth pastor. She had painted previous theme art for him, and he has continued to provide here with canvases.

Jordan takes the Christmas cookies out of the oven. They will proceed to decorate them.

Jordan has had the most dramatic growth spurt during this period. She says she has grown 2 inches since June!

Elyse wanted to show me how she could jump on the trampoline. I had been hearing about this trampoline, but this was the first time I had seen it. Elyse was quite comfortable bounding about on it. Much more comfortable than Granddad, even though I had spent a lot of time on one in high school and on the Ga Tech freshman gym team. But the old joints are too stiff now! At least I crawled back off it before I hurt myself.

Elyse also wanted to show me that she could hang upside down and right side up, and even did a pullup for me. She has very good coordination and good strength-to-weight ratio.

After all this, she came down the pole like a monkey!

Then it was off to a fast game of chase with Scooter, with Elyse growling all the while just like scooter.

Just a few minutes with Darla and the girls was enough to make us forget the rigors of the long road trip. We headed out to Abita Springs, where we have stayed on our last few Christmas trips. We felt very blessed and looked forward to the rest of the visit.

We went back to Jeff and Darla's on Christmas Eve and just enjoyed watching the fun and games. The girls play "broken egg" on the trampoline, where one person balls up and is bounced by the others - if they open up, they are a broken egg.

Ashleigh and Elyse get Jordan pretty high here, and break the egg.

Ashleigh and Jordan engage in a swing-war session and Elyse wisely stays on high neutral ground.