England

After our trip to Paris (see post below), we went to England to see Simon's family. We saw lots of Simon's family and friends at an party hosted by Pauline and Robert. Below are some of the pictures of our tip.

We took a walk to a waterfall that is really near Simon's house. It was beautiful!

We went to a Derby County football game. Go Rams!

nter>This is at Bolsover Castle that dates back to the 12th Century.

We visited Kedleston Hall where scenes from the movie, 'The Dutchess' were filmed.

Paris

Way back at the beginning of March Simon and I went on vacation. We began our trip in Paris, France. We saw a lot in the few days we were there. We saw Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. We took a boat trip down the Seine River. We went to the Louvre where we saw the Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa. On a cold rainy day we went to Versailles where we saw the Hall of Mirrors. We also went to Disneyland Paris. I have never been to a Disney park wearing long pants, a coat, and a scarf. I had to buy a hat because it was so cold. We loved Disneyland! Below you will see a few of our pictures from the trip.

Paris

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SNOW!

I did not believe yesterday that we were going to have this much snow. It poured down rain yesterday and I thought it would be too wet for the snow to stick. I was wrong (one of the few times i am). Last night it began to snow and by the time we went to bed the ground was covered. Simon and I both went into work late this morning. Simon was supposed to be in at 6am and he went in at 8am. I was supposed to be in at 9am and went in at 11am. The exciting thing was the bank closed early today, so I had a really short day. I took Lexie out this morning to see if she would like the snow and she loved it. She ran around everywhere. She started pulling sticks out of the snow and was surprised when they were covered in snow and ice. She would have stayed out much longer, but I had to get to work. It was a good snow day. It has been a long time since we have had one.

Walker Family Christmas

As I mentioned, my mom's family (the Walkers) gets together on MLK weekend to Celebrate Christmas. We learned several years ago that it was too hard to get together on Christmas, so we picked MLK weekend to do that. It works great. My parents hosted everyone this year. On Saturday we went to my Uncle Mel and Aunt Peggy's house. There are 21 of us now. It seems like we are growing every year. It seems kinda crazy at times, but I love it.

The Family

Ashle, Baby Boy Honeycutt, Becky and David

Becky and Sam

Uncle Mel and Sam

Uncle Mel and Mom

Me holdin Sam and Mom holding Lexie

Me holding baby goat

Junior

Ruby

Annabel and Grace

Christmas Night

On Christmas night we had dinner and opened gifts at our house. It was great! After we all opened our gifts we went to my parent's house for dessert and stockings.

Christmas Morning.

On Christmas morning Simon and I went to my parent's house for breakfast. My Nana always comes over and this year my Aunt Amy was able to spend Christmas with us.

My dad and Nana

Nana is opening her Christmas gifts while Lexie watches.

Christmas with the Honeycutts

The Monday before Christmas we were able to get together with the Honeycutt family (minus David and Ashley). Simon and I had the day off and my cousin, Phillip and his wife, Robin were in town from West Virginia and my cousin, Heather was in town from Burlington. It was kinda weird how it worked out for us all to be together. It was nice. Of course my parents, my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Tommy, and my Nana were there. O, there was also 5 dogs! Phillip and Robin have 4 dogs. The dogs in the family picture are their dogs. I can't remember all of their names, sorry. The 5th dog is Bear. He stayed in the back bedroom most of the day because he does not play well with others (people or dogs).

This is Bear with my Uncle Tommy and cousin Phillip.

Help!

Will someone tell me where I can find neat backgrounds for my blog. I am tired of the boring ones that are offered.

I KNOW!!!!

Yes, I know it has been a very long time since I have posted anything on the blog. Sorry. I have actually have been reading any one's blogs recently. So here is an update. Simon and I had a great Christmas. Since we both had to work on the 24th and 26th, it makes the holiday so short. I envy those people who have a week or so off at Christmas. I miss those days. We rang in the New Year with some friends here in Lexington. Can you believe it is 2009?

This past weekend we got together with my mom's family for 'Walker Family Christmas.' With my mom's family we decided several years ago that it was difficult for us to get together on Christmas, so we decided to get together every Martin Luther King weekend. It works great. We have gone to different places to celebrate, but this year we were at my parent's house. Well, we were there most of the time. Friday night we did our traditional Mexican meal out. Saturday we went to Taylorsville to see my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Mel. My Uncle is not feeling well, and did not want to make the trip, so we decided to take the party to him. We ate BBQ, played with the goats and did our traditional reading of the Christmas story from the Bible. Then, the best part, opening our stockings. We gave up several years ago trying to buy gifts for everyone. We just buy stocking stuffers.

Saturday night we watched the annual MLK weekend UNC basketball game. Now every year my family gets together for Christmas MLK weekend and every year we watch UNC play basketball and every year they lose. Well, this year was different. Maybe is was because is was a night game instead of a day game, I don't know. But UNC won and most of the family was happy. We had my cousins staying at our house through out the weekend. Sunday night was Wii night at our house. Those that were still around came to our house to play Wii. Can you believe that my cousin, Becky and her husband do not have a Wii?? Maybe it is because they have a 5 month old son. We played it all: Wii fit, Guitar Hero, Wii sports, and Mario Cart!

So did anyone watch TV on Tuesday? We have a TV outside my office at work so we can see what the Stock Market is doing, but Tuesday we had it on the Inauguration. I watched bits and pieced up until the actual event and then I saw right after it all happened. I had a meeting at noon! I am excited about the new President. I know that there are lots of people out there who are not happy with the decision that the American public made, but get over it. We have at least 4 years of Obama. Hey, he can't be any worse that what we have had!!

Holidays are over. So thing are back to normal here at the Maddox household. I hope that I have updated everyone enough. I will try to post some pictures from the weekend soon. I forgot my camera so I have to get them from my dad.