Foxfire Family Tradition 2016

The 2016 Foxfire Family Photo
Love is Love is Love is Love

We Have Been Family Way Before 2012

Belardo - Burton Christmas

A Huge Thank You to Marc for taking holiday photos of the family.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Happy Holidays from my family to yours!

Love,

TheChristyBel

2016 Belardo-Burton Holiday

The Family

Oh, Brother!

My Number One Man!

Phyllis and the Fabulous Five Grand Babies!

Delaware for Christmas

For the wintery holidays, Marc and I spent a few days down in Delaware. It was super nice to spend time back at home, relax, and not worry or think about work! We spent the week touring around Delaware (we saw a Longwood Gardens Christmas, Baldwin's Book Barn, HomeGrown, Ashland Nature Center, Newark's Main Street, and old friends), working on homemade gifts, and watching the Star Wars films (yes, that is right, watching all 6 films and the new one)! It was a long, lovely week of being home. Here are some highlights of the Christmas holiday!

Happy Christmas, Everyone! I hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday!

TheChristyBel

Merry Christmas from Marc the Christmas Jew!

Marc and I at Longwood Gardens

Beautiful Decorations at Longwood

A Succulent Christmas Tree
I want this for next year!

The Foxfire Crew - Christmas 2015
From Left to Right: Zach F., Sean B (Brother), Marc, theChristyBel, Michael, Megan, Shawn, and Zach

Before Heading Back to New Paltz, We Stopped in AP!
My Asbury Park Ladies
From Left to Right: Krista, theChristyBel, and Kelsey

The Last of the Christmas Mugs

Remember when I showed you those mugs I made for holiday gifts way back when?! Well, I have finally gotten the rest of them fired and packaged up for some very special people. Here, are the last mugs - they went through a Salt Fire Atmosphere - where the temperatures get mega hot and at a certain temperature, salt is added to the kiln. This allowed the salt particles to break up and adhere to the pieces placed in the kiln. It gives a very interesting crystallized look to them! I cannot tell who these are for, since they are on their way to the recipients now! But they are late holiday gifts!

Happy Late Christmas!

TheChristyBel

Naughty or Nice?

Sunfish

Have you been naughty or nice this year?!? TheChristyBel could tell! Just kidding. This year, for holiday gifts, I made a bunch of ceramic mugs for family and friends! Here are a few that I have given away already. There are a few more that still need to be given to some recipients. I'll post more when all them have been distributed! I am so grateful to have taken the ceramics class. Not only to expand my artistic capabilities, but I was able to make all of my gifts for the holidays. Saved me time and money since I was already in the studio for most of my fall semester life! I was able to also incorporate my 2-D drawings onto the mugs too through the Xerox image transfer method. So everyone got 3-D and 2-D art from me. They came out pretty well! Don't you think?!

Western Northern Flicker

Pronghorn

Western Meadowlark

Snow Shoe Hare

Dragonfly

Downy Woodpecker

Chickadee

Black Bear

Great Horned Owl

Rock Climber

Longwood Gardens Christmas

Christmas Trees in the Main Observatory Room

A Peacock Masquerade Themed Tree!

Since I have been home, it has been non-stop making rounds to visiting some of my favorite people and places. But, I was able to get a visit that I did not expect: a visit from Whitney! She was willing to travel all the way down from Connecticut just so we could hang out. I have not seen this girl since we both stopped marching and dancing with Alter Ego in April of 2012.

After almost two and a half years of being separated, we were finally able to be reunited! Whitney arrived in Delaware around 11:00pm EST and we literally talked and caught up until 3am! It was awesome! We can literally pick up right where we left off, even after 2-years - from reminiscing about dance and guard to art to eduction and teaching to everything in between.

It was such a treat getting back together with Whit! The next day, I took her to Longwood Gardens. She has a degree and love for plants/botany, so I thought that it would be a great idea for her to visit Longwood, especially in the winter time with all the Christmas decor up! She absolutely loved it!

It was great to walk around the Longwood Grounds, catch up, see the beautiful decorations, and also nerd out over plants! It was so awesome! I definitely learned a lot from Whitney about the plants that Longwood used in many of their gardens, decorations, and in their exotic botany research. She will definitely make a wonderful teacher!

Even though less than 24-hours with Whitney was such a wonderful treat to come back to the East Coast to, it was definitely not enough. But, I'll be seeing her again soon when we head to New Mexico for Aud's wedding next fall. So we will soon be reunited again! Thanks for a wonderful visit, Whit! Xo

Enjoy the rest of the photos from our adventures at Longwood!

TheChristyBel

Cardinals Cover the Pierre House Tree!

Cardinals in Flight

Thomas the Tank Engine!

Being a Penguin in the Desert Room?! What?

Oh My Gosh....How Freaking Precious?!?!
Totally Making These Ornaments One Day!

Birds of Paradise in the Rainforest!

Two of Our Three Panty Party AE Girls!
Audrey, We Wish You Were Here!

A Delaware Christmas

Spending Christmas on the East Coast in Delaware was definitely the remedy after a very long, challenging fall semester in the Tetons.

Seeing my family, my grandparents, and a handle of my closest friends and former co-workers were the exact thing I needed!

Like every Christmas, Phyllis and Ray came over for Christmas Eve dinner. It was a great surprise when mom pulled out salmon as the dinner!!! So exciting! Finally fish! And it tasted delicious! What a great gift to have one of my favorite dishes for dinner! Along with cheesy potatoes, popovers, asparagus, stuffed tomatoes, and the most delicious salad ever!!

Mom Knows the Way to My Heart - Through Seafood!

On Christmas Day, presents were opened mega late, I'd say around 1-2pm! Sleeping in and relaxin was more that needed and deserved! Sean labeled all my gifts with moose on them! How appropriate!?! Even though the gift I wanted and received was finally being home wih my family, I did receive some awesome Nikon Monarch binoculars! Now I can go birding out west!! Exciting!

Sean Labeled All my Presents with Moose!

Dinner again was full of seafood. I guess my mom knew how much I was craving it from being in a land-locked state! So Christmas Day dinner included lobster, shrimp, more asparagus, and glazed carrots! Yummmmm!

Christmas Day Dinner - More Seafood.
In Heaven!

Later that night, it was the annual tradition of visiting the brothers and sister from other mothers, the Patterson's and the Furlong's! Never a dull moment in this household! Never ending drinks and a Christmas Day trip to the movies to see Anchorman 2.

Note about the movie: it was terrible. we were so disappointed! You know how the first movie had so many memorable, stand out quotes...this second one did not. Not only were the jokes not memorable, but they were terrible, badly placed, and totally out of context joy matching the movie. It was not at all thought out and organized; it seemed that the producers just grabbed every single funny actor/actress and comedian, placed then in the movie cold turkey, and let them improv it out. Not worth the money to see.

My Sister Megan and I Sharing a Holiday Drink Together!
With Sean Photobombing...

But anyways, it was great hanging with the brothers and sister!! I missed them all so much! Foxfire family forever!

Would Not Change This For the World!
My Foxfire Family
Est. 1996

Happy Christmas,

TheChristyBel