*Amanda & Al's Adventures*: December 2012

There are plenty of reasons to be jolly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!!!!!!!!!!! We decorated our house a little bit to get into the holiday spirit, even though we'd only be at home for part of December.

There was a Christmas in Davidson weekend celebration with booths from local vendors, contests, and food. We attended the parade through Main St. the next day, which was entertaining. Opal, of course, was a celebrity.

Many people stopped to pet her and she loved on them all with lots of lick kisses.

She gets very excited when new people give her attention. Sometimes she gets overly excited and jumps on little kids to lick them and they get a little scared, haha. We've gotten good about controlling her around strangers for fear of some liability due to her overly affectionate nature. For the most part, she's a really good, happy lil' puppy. She's rockin' her X-mas bandanna with red and green poinsettias in the pic. above. I always find great deals on trendy lil' pup gear for our stinky lil' puppy.

We decorated our stockings and hung them above the mantle in our living room. No surprise = Opal's was the first one full with gifts! She's a spoiled little pup-eroni. The picture doesn't do it justice, but Al's is cleverly decorated with red and green guitar picks. He's so creative!

December represents a milestone marker for me and Al.

I successfully rounded out my first semester of my new job at Davidson. Final presentations, final research papers, final exams = marathon grading = grades have been submitted! That is definitely a reason to celebrate. I also had several campus obligations to participate in such as a roundtable of female students and female professors on microaggressions on campus, I was a guest speaker on gender and identity at a PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) meeting for which my colleague is the local chapter's president, among other social events related to the end'o semester. There was a faculty and staff party at the president's house on campus, and a holiday/end of semester party for faculty at a colleague's house, which were nice ways to reconvene with others and socialize a bit amidst the madness that is final grading.

Opal and I went on a dog hike organized by the Humane Society of Charlotte at Crowders Mountain State Park. It was a whopping 7 mile hike, round trip! We got home exhausted and hardly able to walk. Opal and I took long naps when we returned home, after having hot baths to soothe our muscles. Al couldn't believe how pooped out we were! We are eager for him to join us on the next hike up the mountain so he can experience the intense work out it was and the natural beauty that North Carolina mountains have to offer. It was definitely a peaceful way to rejuvenate mind and body both as a break in between my crazy end'o semester grading.

Al successfully completed his EMT class and is now a certified Emergency Medical Technician in the state of North Carolina. He is gearing up to take the national exam in January when we get back from our holiday travels. We attended the graduation ceremony held for his class and two others in the region. The commencement speakers were entertaining with their stories from experience in the field. It was a really enjoyable finale to the semester's worth of life-saving skills Al has been learning and being tested on.

We briefly chit chatted with a few of Al's friends and instructors after the ceremony. Then, we went out for North Carolina BBQ to celebrate this accomplishment but Al, of course, ordered Texas brisket, hehe. He gave it two thumbs up and said it was the perfect celebration meal for this accomplishment. The N.C. pulled pork -which is what I had- was pretty good, too. Al and a few of his classmates celebrated the course completion with a few drinks at our house. It was time to let their hair down, that's for sure!

Now, we're enjoying our time with family in New Mexico. We road tripped out here partly so we could bring Opal with us and partly so we could drive through the states we've never been to before. We left our home and passed straight east to west through Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, the northern most tip of Texas (Amarillo), and arrived in New Mexico. It was a really easy drive with plenty of pretty, changing scenery.

We stopped in Memphis to stay the night and also tour the famous Beale St. in downtown Memphis. Al took a tour of the Gibson Guitar factory.

He had a blast seeing how the guitars are made and he got to spend some time playing with several of them. We stopped to have lunch at a local BBQ joint before leaving town.

Then, we spent the night in Oklahoma City before traveling the last bit to our destination in New Mexico.


We jammed to country renditions of X-mas songs in OK.

We hadn't seen my parents since May, when we had our farewell party at their house, and since we'd just seen Al's parents for Thanksgiving, we decided it was only fair to visit my family for the holiday break.

This balancing act is tough but it's necessary since we no longer have the luxury of being so close to both families for the holidays. Now, we're out of state and so are all of our loved ones!

We did notice, however, that after living in different states and then coming to North Carolina, North Carolina is really beautiful in comparison. If I had to rank the states in order of beauty, I would say NC, NM, then TX, haha. No offense, TX, but you rank low on the hierarchy of natural beauty.

I guess you all will have to come see us in NC for yourselves! : )

A winter storm warning was in effect in New Mexico, but we did not end up getting snow. No white Christmas for us this year! This pic. was taken on the way back to my parents' house from spending the weekend visiting the grandmas. We wanted to beat the stormy weather if it did, in fact, turn out to be as horrendous as projected.