Santa Came!

"Merry Christmas everyone!"

I woke up this morning to a room full of beautiful presents...

...and personalized stockings stuffed with yummy treats!
I always dreamed of being 30 years old and Santa still coming to visit!  Thanks again Pegg, Dave and Ali! :)

Ali and Dave came over around 7:45am and the 5 of us all sat around opening gifts all morning!

It never gets old!

Even Cash and Lina got involved in a little bit of the action!

At 9:00am, we headed over to Mammy’s house down the street for breakfast!

I look forward to this breakfast all year! It is the perfect southern breakfast if you ask me! Grits, sausage, cheese potatoes, biscuits, eggs, fruit, yummmm!!

Then it was on to the ornament opening! Aaron’s aunt Vicki shops all year round for personalized ornaments for all 15 people in the family (including Dave and I)! Each person opens one and we all guess who it’s for! So fun!

Aaron opened Sherry’s ornament…

I opened Ali’s ornament…

Mammy opened Andrea’s…

Dave and Ali…

Kaye and Keith (Aaron’s dad and beauiful bride)

Adalyah (Aaron’s darling 2nd cousin)…

Mammy is seriously the techiest (sp?) grandma around! She has a card maker on her computer and makes everyone’s cards from scratch! Check out the envelope for her Christmas present to A and I.

And since Aaron’s birthday is near Christmas, Mammy just saved his gift for today.
How amazing is the card she made for him?! Haha

The Osteen side of the family with our new ornaments!

(Dave, Ali. Keith, Kaye, Jed, Sherry Beth, Mammy, Daniel, Vicki, Adalyah, Andrea,
Me, Sherry and Aaron)

After leaving Mammy’s, we headed over to Aaron’s mom’s cottage to spend a couple hours hanging and giving her lessons on her new camera that she got for Christmas!

Then Aaron and I drove around Black Mountain checking out the area!
I am absolutely in love with Black Mountain’s charisma! It oozes with history and charm!

These are just a few of the examples of why I love it so much!

The following houses are all in walking distance to each other and are known to be real life haunted houses! EEEkkkk! This is an old home turned bed and breakfast. They no longer rent out the 3rd story bedroom because it’s so haunted that people never stayed more than one night before asking to switch rooms!

This is The Red Rocker which is also an old house turned bed and breakfast. It was actually built in the 1930s and was built as a wedding gift for the man's son! Must be nice, eh? Unfortunately now it’s haunted and guests often see ghosts and hear strange noises through the night.

This is Gran’s house, which was built in the 1930’s. While she’s never seen a ghost, she said she’s definitely heard voices in her chimney a few times. Eeek!

This is Aaron’s friend Burke’s childhood home which was built in the last 1800's. Aaron spent a lot of his childhood playing here and this is known to be the most haunted house in Black Mountain! Aaron entire family has said that whenever they would be in the house they always felt like there were ghosts all around them. Eire, eire, eire! Rocking chairs have rocked, baby voices have been heard in the hallways, lights have randomly come one… etc.

NO THANK YOU!

This is Aaron’s aunt Carol and uncle Joe’s house, which was built back in 1912 by Joe’s grandfather. It is the most gorgeously renovated home, but definitely haunted by Joe’s aunt Janet! When Pegg was pregnant with Ali, she heard someone walking up the hallway in the middle of the night and then saw aunt Janet’s ghost in the doorway of “the blue room” upstairs. Years later, Aaron’s aunt Carol saw aunt Janet’s ghost in the mirror of “the blue room” and screamed at her to leave, which thankfully she did. Then Olivia, who is Joe and Carol’s daughter, saw aunt Janet’s ghost a couple years ago too!

Ali has been staying in “the blue room” this Christmas. Last night she left her silver hoop earrings in the bathroom and when she woke up one had been totally bent. No one had touched them!!
AUNT JANET!!! Haha

After touring the town, Aaron and I headed over to Gran’s for the yearly Christmas party with his mom’s side of the family. There was delicious food…

… lots of family to hang with (15 total!)

… and a fun game of White Elephant Gift Exchange (not the goofy gift style though)!

Dave and Ali ended up with the 2 gifts Aaron and I had brought!

Me, Aaron, Pegg, Dave and Ali with our gift exchange prezzies!

Sweet Gran!

After the party, Aaron and I drove his mom and aunt Terry to see the Christmas lights show that we had seen last night in the neighborhood!


After the party, Ali, Dave, Aaron, Jody, Olivia and I all headed back over to Carol and Joe’s to hang in the basement, which is filled with any and every game a kid would ever want, including a ping pong table which we definitely took advantage of!

Carol loves Halloween and stocks up on costumes for the kids! This was Aaron’s Justin Beiber look!

But this was the costume that stole the show!
I almost peed my pants laughing so hard seeing Aaron with all that hair!

The 6 of us hung in the basement till about midnight before going our separate ways for some sleep, but not before Aaron snuck up to “the blue room” and planted a freaky looking doll under the covers of Ali’s bed! We were hoping she’d think Aunt Janet gave her a gift! Merry Christmas Ali!!

I couldn’t have asked for a better day, filled with amazing family, yummy food, deliciously sweet cookies, fun presents, belting laughter and lots and lots of Diet Coke (a staple in the Rozell / Tyson / Osteen family!)

Merry 2011 Christmas!

Christmas Eve, Black Mountain Style!

I woke up this morning to Aaron watching TV in the family room at 4:30am! Seems neither of our bodies is on East Coast time schedules yet!

Luckily I was able to fall back asleep until about 8am. When I woke up, Aaron had already gone to the store with Pegg, had breakfast and taken some photos of downtown Black Mountain! Pegg had picked up these 6 delicious apples, which were waiting for me in the kitchen when I woke up! She knows me so well! The 3 at the top are famous around these parts and were about $3.00 each! EEekkk… but let me tell ya, they were worth EVERY BITE!

Even Cash got in on some of the apple action! But, not without doing one of his tricks!

I called about my suitcase, but the lady from Delta said they didn’t have a record of my bag… wonderful! Good news was there were 3 flights heading into Asheville “so maybe it would arrive today”. I wasn’t taking any chances though, so I went ahead and took advantage of their payback policy! Yep, if they loose your bag, they reimburse you for replacement items! So, I threw my hair up, put on the same clothes I’d been wearing for 36 hours and drove to Asheville with Aaron! PS Thanks Aunt Vicki for letting us borrow your fabulous car for the week! (This was my 1st time driving in over a year!)

First stop, TJ Maxx! Second stop, Target! I may or may not have bought 2 COMPLETE outfits, shoes included!  haha  Merry early Christmas to me! Thanks Delta!

By this point, everyone was hanging at Aaron’s aunt Carol’s, so we headed there to join the game and see Annie (Pegg’s best friend) before she headed out.

We spent the afternoon baking in the kitchen…

Playing with the dogs…

Making amazing desserts with Olivia…

...and watching a bit of football!

Gran came over a little later in the afternoon. She is such a sweetheart! Joy, genuine kindness, and love practically exudes from her! You can’t help but feel wonderful in her presence!

The weather was gorgeous today. The snow has been replaced this year with glorious sunshine and crisp cool fresh air! Carol and Joe’s house is all dressed up for Christmas! :)

Speaking of Carol and Joe’s house. The picture above only shows half of the front of it. It actually extends quite a bit to the left in a gorgeous add on that they completed 7 years ago. In the basement of the add on there’s a game room for the kids and an entire decoration storage / craft room for Carol! I was lucky enough to take advantage of her excessive collection of wrapping supplies!

We all sat down at 6:30pm for a delicious homemade southern Christmas Eve dinner! Gran, Aaron, Me, Dave, Ali, Carol, Joe, Pegg, Olivia and Andrew!

The food was fantastic, the company was wonderful, but the best part of the night was when the doorbell rang and my suitcase was home safe! YAY!

We left around 8:30pm and drove through the neighborhood to a house where the guy had actually rented out a radio station (99.1) and had a 3 minute loop of Christmas songs that went in PERFECT SYNC with the lights on his house! It was fantastic! The entire street was backed up with cars! Only in Black Mountain!

We’re all home now, cozy, sleepy, and ready for Santa to visit!

Ali and Dave are coming over early in the morning for some family present opening time!  Then it’s off to Mammy’s (Aaron’s dad’s mom) for a huge Christmas breakfast with that side of the family! Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

AMERICA!

The morning finally came for me to fly back to America!  For whatever reason, everytime Aaron and I take a taxi to the airport, we end up cluthing each others hands in fear of dying before ever making it there.  We have the worst luck with crazy taxi drivers! We made it to the airport, safe and sound, YAY!

We didn’t have time to take our traditional tickets picture in the airport, so we had to settle for this one on the plane instead!

First stop was TOKYO! Luckily though, we didn’t have a super long layover! 1 hour after arriving in Tokyo, we were already standing in line to board our next plane to Detroit… a 12 hour flight!

I always look forward to long flights because I can always just sit back, relax, and watch TV or movies on my in-seat entertainment center for 10 hours! But, you can image my disappointment when I sat down and saw this…

NO in-seat entertainment! BIG FAIL Delta! Big Fail!

So, with that said; 4 meals…

...3 snacks... multiple diet cokes… and 17 hours later, we finally arrived in Asheville, NC! 

Aaron‘s family was excitedly awaiting our arrival at the airport!

Even Cash, Aaron’s dog, was allowed in the airport to come to welcome us home! Perks of a small town airport, I guess!

Aaron’s Dad: Keith, Aaron, Aaron’s mom: Pegg, Aaron’s sister: Ali, and Keith's wife: Kaye…. and of course Cash doggie!

Of all the times I’ve travelled, I have NEVER had an airline lose my bags... UNTIL TODAY! Yep, I arrived in Asheville and my suitcase was still in Detroit! Again, BIG FAIL DELTA!  I gave them Aaron’s grandmother’s address and it was hopefully going to be delivered tonight, but it’s 9:30pm now, and no suitcase!

We stopped by the darling condo (which is right in the darling downtown area, in walking distance to Aaron's aunt and grandmother's places) that a family friend had lent Aaron, Pegg and I for the week.  We dropped our stuff, freshened up and headed out to My Father’s Pizza in downtown Black Mountain for dinner with Keith, Kaye, Pegg, Ali, Aaron’s aunt Sherry Beth, and his grandmother Mammy!

It was so nice to have so many family members all together to welcome us home to the US! And the amazing pizza didn’t hurt either!

 

  After dinner, we stopped by Aaron’s grandma: Gran’s house to visit with her for a bit before heading back to the condo with Pegg and Ali to meet Aaron’s best friends Sam and Bill. The 5 of us sat and chatted for a while, catching up and eating delicious homemade fudge and cheese! YUM!

It’s amazing that we’re still awake, considering we’ve been awake for 27 hours straight now! Actually, scratch that. I just looked over at Aaron and he’s dead asleep on the comfy chair in the living room! Haha. Now that this has been written and my first day home has been properly documented I’m heading to bed!

Craig and Maddie!

My friend and neighbor, Craig, has his friend Maddie visiting from America for the week!  LUCKY!  So, last night, Aaron and I had planned to take them to our favorite 갈메기살 (pork) restaurant on "the meat street" in Nampodong, but Aaron got really sick, so he stayed home and I played tour guide instead!  This street is lined with amazing pork and beef restaurants!

...but this little hidden gem is my absolute favorite!

We ordered 갈메기살 (pronounced Galmegisal) and feasted on the delicious beef, which is cooked right at our table!

Craig and Maddie!

If you come to Busan, you have to try 호떡 (pronounced hoht duk).  Craig was really excited to introduce Maddie to these delicious Korean delicacies! 

 

mmmmm.  What food, drenched and fried in a vat of butter, isn't absolutely delicious?!

  

Then we walked through Nampodong to see all the Christmas decorations and lights that have been set up on the main street...

...and had out picture taken next to one of the many "Merry Christmas photo spots." 

We had so much fun!  Just wish A could have been there to enjoy all the festivities! :)