And the tradition continues

One chilly night in 2008 we decided to go see the Christmas lights at Hogle Zoo with our (relatively) new friends Megan and Travis. The night was promising at first, as the lights were pretty awesome and the weather was appropriately wintery, but somewhere near the reptile house Megan got separated from the group, and due to some cell phone malfunctions it took us a good 45 minutes to find her again, which left poor Megs a bit traumatized.

 But out of that unfortunate debacle was born a lovely Christmas tradition. Each year us and the Morrisons (and sometimes invited guests) hit up one of the Christmas sights around the valley that we have never been to before. In 2009 we went to see the lights at Thanksgiving Point, which was totally lame except for the fact that Megan and I were able to serenade the boys with rousing renditions of "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas" since we viewed the lights from the comfort of the car. I think they were ready to bludgeon us by the end of the night. Last year we were joined by Morgan and Hansol and braved the crowds at the Festival of Trees, which was cool but oh so packed with people.

This year we decided to keep things more low key, which ended up being a great idea since Trav hurt his back the day before and was all kinds of doped up on muscle relaxers. Our destination of choice was the Winder Dairy Country Store, which is apparently a sort of Christmas Mecca around these parts since they serve up delicious scones during the holiday season and all the houses leading up to the store are decked out with some amazing lights. Here are a few pics of the night, courtesy of Megan's iphone:

Did you know that Mike and I are really good at looking awkward in pictures? Some might say it's a skill, but i think it's more like a gift from God or something. 

Megan and Trav do a much better job, even with Red being kind of out of it from his meds:

Hot scones with honey butter. Delish:

We ended the night by watching The Family Stone while Megan and I finished up our holiday wreaths. It was a great start to the Christmas season and a tradition that I hope continues for years to come.