A Craley Christmas

As usual, this is long overdue.

The Craley Clan came down to spend our first Christmas in our new house with us, and we did some pretty neat stuff! On Christmas night we went to the Bristol Motor Speedway which sponsors a light display to benefit children's charities. Naturally, most of the pics are blurry, but I'll post a couple to give you the idea. The best part of this is that you get to drive a lap on the speedway itself - the fastest half-mile in racing! It was very cool. The Craleys on the track...... There is a Christmas Village in the center (or pit area) of the track. We had funnel cake and hot chocolate and the kids bought a huge bag of popcorn which Tom and I are still eating. They had rides for little kids and a couple of fun houses with big slides at the end. You should have seen me....no, on second thought, it's better you didn't.

All of the displays were really neat, like this volcano and palm tree, which was right next to the dinosaur and just above the giant shopping cart, which was my favorite. Highly recommended! I'm sure we'll have to go every year just so Tom can drive on the track.

We all spent a lot of time in jammies, reading, and doing not much of anything. The girls are into the Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer, so one afternoon all the girls raced to Abingdon to see the movie. It was great, and I expect the highpoint of the whole trip for Lexi!

It was pretty nice while they were here, so we seized the opportunity to get Lexi on the swinging bridge across the Clinch River. Last summer when they were here, we encountered bees and only Cait, Mike and I made it up on the bridge that time. The scenery is not quite as pretty in the winter as in the summer, but it's fun crossing these old bridges any time.

Three generations of bridge walkers....

Another day we took a hike. I had wanted to try to find the house Aunt Doretta Peters lived in when she was young, so we parked at the switchback on Manville Road and walked down to the cemetery where Robert and Minerva Penley are buried. Their house is just down over the hill, so we visited that, and then hiked up the road to Aunt Doretta's house. That's another post -- but here's a picture from that day. The little orange dot is Caiti's hat.

I hope they had as much fun as I did!