Fort Bragg Champs and Nutcracker

This weekend the camera was hidden but praise the Lord for phones with cameras!
Thursday Jon found out about a Fort Bragg family scavenger hunt and we decided it would be something fun to do Saturday so he signed us up. I got home Friday night at midnight from a ladies night with the wives in Jon's unit to find he and Molly crashed on the recliner - having only gotten home 2 hours earlier from a rehearsal for a wedding he had. This was not a great start knowing we had to get up early to drive to the lake but when our alarms went off we hurried up and ate our breakfast to the sound of rain hitting the roof. Since it was almost freezing we threw on our long john's, smart wool's and other layers to go on our hunt. I did however forget gloves for Molly since there was no snow it didn't dawn on me we would need them. We got to Smith Lake signed in and were off. The uber competitive person in me was going through things as fast as a I could and basically telling Jon to run here and get this or do this while Molly and I stood under shelter not to get wet. That went on for about 20 minutes before he told me I was taking all the fun out of the event - so I set aside winning for the sake of family fun (harder done than said). For the next 2.5 hours we walked around finding clues to where Rudolph was hiding, went and visited the gingerbread man, went and saw ponies and miniature horses (there is a difference and Molly didn't want to ride just touch them) and basically completed the scavenger hunt knowing we were not in the running for a prize but we at least had some fun and learned a few things about events going on post. Jon turned in our sheet while Molly and I stood around the bonfire roasting marshmallows and came back saying at least 20 others teams had beat us b/c they had already turned in their forms. We enjoyed the bonfire a little longer and then headed home to warm up before Jon left for a wedding he was doing. 30 minutes before the wedding I got a call from Jon saying WE WON!! That's right it was about points not time and we got the most points so the McP's are the Fort Bragg champs right now and will be getting our picture for MWR later today. Molly might not have enjoyed the entire 3 hours out in the cold with exposed hands but once we collect the prize I think she will realize it was worth it (I hope)!!

We found Rudolph 2 hours and 45 minutes after starting (they said it should take 90 minutes)
We also enjoyed our first family ballet and possibly the first time for any of us to go to one. Jon's question when things started - will they talk? His later observation - they are all mute! Molly enjoyed the music and a balcony row to ourselves where she could dance around and also make some observations during the performance. One great thing is that Molly really did understand the emotion the music was trying to evoke because at a climax part she was yelling/screaming/laughing so loud and clapping. Unfortunately during a quiet moment she also felt those emotions and was "that kid" but since all kids were free there were a lot at the performance so we didn't feel as bad.
Waiting for the performance to begin.

Molly loved it!
We did hear a little girl near us state during the first act that those were real kids down there performing because it was not on TV. But she also decided in the middle of the second act she was done watching the performance b/c the TV version was much shorter and she was tired of watching it and would rather watch it on TV. So she and her parents left which was kind of sad but maybe one day she will appreciate things like this.