Holiday Happenings

Christmas at the Dougherty household (with Scarbroughs and Dargises present) was a fairly uneventful occasion this year. It was lots of fun to have all of the children (except for Baby Lane, darn her!) and spouses in one house. My sister Rachel and her husband Lucas flew up from North Carolina and after spending a couple of days with Lucas' family, they headed to Kenai. We did a lot of eating, watching movies, and playing Settlers of Catan (and re-learning Cities and Knights).


Christmas dinner: chicken kiev, chicken cordon bleu, carrot souffle, green bean casserole, crescent rolls, scalloped potatoes, and seven-layer salad. Yum.

Our families did not exchange "big" gifts this year, except for for the kids (my brothers and Lane). Instead we just did stocking stuffers, which we do every year anyways, but this year we only did things that would fit in stockings. It was lots of fun, and that way we didn't end up with a ton of stuff that we didn't need and that we'd have to haul all around the country and world.


All our stockings, oldest to youngest: Mom, Shannon, me, Lucas, Rachel, Sean, Kyle, and Lane.


Mine and Shannon's stockings (his is the brown one, mine is white). Notice the HUGE Asian pear in his stocking...it's tradition at my house to get an Asian pear in your stocking. They are fantastic and usually quite expensive in Alaska, which is why we'd only get them at Christmas!

Shannon bought me the movie "Up," which we had seen a couple of weeks previously, "dedicating" it to the great adventure of life that God has given to us together. I got him new blue jeans, a pair of long underwear (ha!), and "Christmas Vacation," which he loves but we didn't own. My sister got us a gorgeous ornament from Italy, and mom got us a gift card to the Olive Garden (date night in Alabama!). Sean got us a couple of cute baby outfits. We made out well. :-)


Rachel took pity on our shihtzu and gave her a bath. I helped...a little bit.


Family picture: Lucas, Shannon, me, Rachel, Kyle, Mom, and Sean.

Lucas flew back to North Carolina on the 26th, leaving Rachel here for another week. Once again, we ate a lot, played lots of Cities and Knights, and just enjoyed being together. It will probably be a very long time before all of us kids are together with Mom again, so we took advantage of the time to just hang.

January 1st was my 30th birthday. Shannon took me out to lunch at Louie's, the only restaurant in town that's open on New Year's Day. I worked at Louie's back in 2006 before I headed to North Carolina. It's fun because they have lots of dead animals hanging on the wall...it's very Alaskan.


The inside of Louie's. I think there's a halibut and a moose above the bar, and maybe that's a fox fur hanging from the heater?

When we got home, mom and Rachel had made me a gorgeous birthday cake! My mom makes cakes as a side business, so she made me one for my birthday! Isn't it gorgeous?


That cake was HUGE! We're still working on it, and there are teenage boys in this house!

All in all, the holidays were quite relaxing and very fun. It was so good to see my sister, and although she was really mad at Lane for not making an appearance before she left, I'm sure that she'll get over it when they meet in February when Rachel comes back to Alaska for a wedding. Now everyone is back to work and school, and we're just waiting on the little lady to be born. Then the real fun begins!