Thanksgiving & More

We had an exciting edition to our Thanksgiving this year.  My parents came! Shawn does Thanksgiving in Maine with his friends and Ricky comes here so my parents figured if they wanted to do the holiday with any of their kids, they'd have to head this way. They left home at the end of October (my mom retired at the end of September) and went on a giant road trip through Ohio, Michigan, Ricky's in Mississippi, and then finally landed here on Wednesday, November 14. I was very excited to have them here since my dad, especially, is a huge Christmas lover like I am and it gave me the chance to do Christmas-y things down here with them.

The first thing on the agenda though was my dad's birthday on Thursday, November 15.  We celebrated at Maggiano's on I-Drive.

Opening his cards from the kids.

Friday evening, November 16, we were invited to David and Yully's for dinner.  This is baby Natalie who is about four months old now.

Sadly, Brady had a bad night that evening and had to have a nebulizer treatment instead of going to church.  The symptoms were even worse the next night (He kept waking up and coughing and gasping for breath). My mom took him to Centra Care the next morning and they gave him some meds which helped.

We hit up the Mall at Millenia on Saturday night.

Aunt Shirley arrived on Sunday with her chair in tow. She can only sleep on a recliner because of her back.

That Sunday evening, Duncan and I headed out to Coronado Springs Resort for the annual Florida Hospital Gala.  Since my parents were in town this time, we had a built in babysitter and so we decided to spend the night there.  We randomly ran into my friend Bonnie and her son Adam (who was our Bible boy in our wedding almost 16 years ago).

Jennifer was kind enough to come and do my hair for me.

Jennifer's basket which went for $350.

Our table. The whole meal was probably the best I've had there but we were crushed that for the second year in a row, there was no soup.

The entertainment was John Legend who is quite a big name.  But I don't listen to his music (not that I don't like him, I just don't listen to it) so it wasn't as exciting for me as for some others. Oh, to be clear, he was there in person but I took a picture of him on the screen.

The next morning we met Bruce and Jennifer at the Gaylord (where they had stayed) to do the breakfast buffet.  It ended up it was a special character breakfast. We had to pay a little extra for it since we were already committed!

Meanwhile, my parents took the kids to the play, "Elf" at the Rep.  They were very impressed with it.

If it was quiet in the house, this is where you could usually find the kids....watching hockey highlights on YouTube with Papa.

Tuesday, which was two days before Thanksgiving, Aubree and I hit up the ABC, Costco, Trader Joe's, and Publix for all of our Thanksgiving food.  She brought a clipboard so she could check off all the stuff off my list.  She was such a huge help.

Ricky, Ana, and Bre had arrived on Sunday and Ricky really wanted to go to the springs for a swim.

Colby helping Gigi make meatballs on Wednesday.

On Wednesday night we all went to Gaylord Palms to see a couple of free shows and then do the scavenger hunt.  It was really hard! We couldn't solve two of the clues.  The girls were NOT happy that I finally forced us to leave at 8:30 to head home.  But it was the night before Thanksgiving and I had things to do!

Thanksgiving morning was the traditional golf outing for all the guys which this year included my dad.  It was nice to have my mom here to help with cooking and honestly everything went very smoothly although it would be nice to have even a few more ovens! We decided to eat at 4:30 this year since there was a Bears game on at 12:30 and I wanted to make sure, for Bruce and Blake's sake, that the game was over before we ate.  In total, we had 38 persons here which was our biggest group to date.  It was: Grodacks (6), Brace (2), Brace (3), Gregory (2), Bergherm (5), Isidro (5), Zbaraschuk (5), Boo & her brood (5), Bobbi Babiuk, Aunt Shirley, Aunt Mary, Aunt Wanda, and Lake's girlfriend, Elizabeth. We thought it might rain but it ended up holding off and the weather was warm enough that we could have the big meal outside.  It was so lovely.

All the stuff I put out for "lunch."

Bears game. Fortunately they won.

Aubree loves to make coffee and hot beverages so we've nicknamed her, "Aubarista." She put out a tip jar and kept asking people if they wanted a drink.  She had some helpers thought and I think she's going over how it works with them here.

Tables all set.  Thank goodness we were able to borrow them from the church. It's nice to have connections!

We had to keep a life jacket on Bre.

Orion, Rain, Lake, and Elizabeth playing ping pong.  These are my cousin Boo's three sons.

Sometimes it's hard to stop eating the "lunch" food.

Annual group photo.

Time to eat!! We made sure Dasher didn't steal any of the turkey this year.

It was also Orion's 23rd birthday.

Desserts, courtesy of Jennifer, of course.

Aunt Shirley holding court.  She asks the kids questions and gives them money if they answer right.  Obviously, they love it!

The next day, Black Friday, I went out shopping by myself per usual.  I went to a few consignment stores and then got these trees at American Signature.  I love lit trees! We did NOT go to any malls after our horrible experience last year.

We loved having Uncle Ricky, Tia Ana, and Bre here but they had to head out on Sabbath afternoon so they could be back for work on Monday.

Saturday night we went down to Celebration to see the "snowfall."

We can't hang out with Papa without going out for ice cream at least once!

Sunday morning was Christmas tree getting time. Nope, not that one Colby!

A little too tiny.

Yup, that one.

This is what you get for a whopping $80 in Florida.  But it's worth every penny.  Nothing like a real tree!

I let Colby put up a lot of the decorations and it was so funny watching him try to figure out where to put things.  There was no way this garland would stay where he was trying to put it but I loved watching it all unfold.

Not too shabby. The room is huge though so the tree looks pretty tiny.  But since we aren't here for Christmas, I don't worry about a bigger tree.

Papa took the three olders to RDV on Sunday afternoon for a skate.

And that was a wrap of our time with Papa and Gigi.  They had to leave early Monday morning to head home to get things going on there end for the Christmas season.  We weren't too sad because we knew we would see them in a few short weeks.

Other things we've been up to:

Stopped in at Bath & Body Works on a whim with the boys while the girls were at band.  Who knew it would be such a delight to take little boys in there.  "This is actually pretty fun" said Brady.

Now that we got our floor redone (still in process) this area has turned into a soccer court.  That's Aunt Toni in the background.  They came for a few days last week.

Working on some very important art projects or something.

Slowly but surely we have been completing, or trying to complete, house projects. Currently we are in the process of putting in new flooring in our dining room, great room, hallways, stairs, and laundry room.  We finally settled on luxury vinyl plank which is all the rage now. It is the same outfit that installed the carpeting in many the bedrooms and bonus room.  Unfortunately, this hasn't been going so great.  First, it ended up being a different color than how it looked in the sample (I thought it was a brown but it's more a gray). Secondly, we had a sunken room that was filled and after they finished the flooring, we noticed part of the flooring was a different level.  They had to redo it. Next, they did our laundry room and after they put the washer and dryer back, I did a load of laundry and within about 20 minutes, the whole laundry room and part of the hallway was flooded. They never put the drainage hose back! Duncan ripped out half the flooring and they ripped out the rest and had to re-do the whole thing.  Lastly, they keep getting in the wrong parts to do our stairs. They started this whole thing on 11/12 and here it is 12/9 and it's still not finished.

Our original floor. I don't like the color at all and how skinny the boards are.

The machine they bring in to do the removal.

Colby watching the process.

Starting to lay the new floor.

The flooding.

Flooring re-done with blowers trying to dry it.

Dining room. You can see the floor isn't flat.

Boys collecting the offering for Adventurer Sabbath.

That same Sabbath, December 1, the church did a tailgate picnic.  We had missed the first one in February.  It was a lot of fun!

The girls missed it though because they were doing a campout next door at FLA for Pathfinders.

These are the parents of one of my friends, Lisa Kittrell. We somehow discovered that her dad, Glenn, had been operated on by my grandfather, Pampa, back in the 70's at the hospital I was born at in MA.  He couldn't say enough about my grandfather and how he had cut out all the skin cancer from his arm.  If you look closely, you can see the scar near his watch.

Brothers that pee together, stay together.  Or something like that.

Sunday, December 4, was London's 4th birthday party.  It was held at a horse rescue place in Osteen (about 45 minutes away).  How cool to get to paint a pony!

The kids are doing intramurals at FLEC right now. We are grateful that FLEC allows homeschoolers to do so.  I am not thrilled about being there every Monday - Thursday afternoon from 3:25 - 4:30 but at least it isn't a far drive.  Brady is doing floor hockey with 2nd/3rd graders, Aubree flag football with 4th/5th graders and Calleigh flag football with 6-8th graders. There are very few girls playing football and I wouldn't say my girls are getting a proportional number of throws to them which makes me mad because my girls CAN catch.  But, they seem to be having fun.  Brady LOVES playing floor hockey and I am so jealous because I want to play so badly too!

Warming up in the driveway.

Brady is on the yellow team.  They are currently 2-1-1 with two games left. He hasn't scored any goals yet (which are very hard to come by) but he is definitely in the top two of players on the team.

The guy in charge plays ice hockey at RDV so after each game, he has the kids do a line and slap hands.

Sad day for me. I went through all the girls clothes last week and these is the big pile of Tea (a brand I love) dresses that they no longer fit or want to wear.  Calleigh never wears dresses anymore except to church.

The kids had their last skating lesson of this year this past Tuesday night.  Both girls advanced to the last level (Delta). Once they pass this, then they will have to go on to the Academy which meets on Thursday nights rather than Tuesdays.  Brady is still on the Beta level which is third level of five.  I don't know if I can get him to keep going.  He loves to skate but he doesn't like the lessons part.

The girls at Bible Bible on Wednesday evening. This year it is the book of Luke.  The girls are responsible for learning/memorizing five chapters each from Luke.  They meet every Wednesday except when they have Pathfinders which is the third Wednesday of the month. Starting in February, there will be contests with other clubs and eventually they could go all the way to the whole US level if they're good enough.

Somehow I don't have a picture of the girls doing flag football but I will get some! This is Colby and London playing during one of the games. They have been getting along better.

Thursday night we went to Holiday on the Drive in College Park as we do every year.

Fun in the snow!

Brady realizes that Calleigh put snow down his back.

Having a snack on the curb.

Brady and Aubree painted some snowmen at art class.  Brady is blocking his snowman unfortunately.  These aren't done yet either.

A few things I missed posting from my last post because Duncan hadn't given me the pictures yet:

The kids loved horseback riding so much in Utah that Duncan took them here locally back in September.

They reported it wasn't nearly as exciting as in Utah.

Duncan took the boys to an Orlando City soccer game.

Hiking in Wekiwa Springs.

Duncan put up some lights around our pool area and I love it!

Finally, in closing, a little conversation from Colby as we cuddled in bed one morning:

Me:"I hope we can cuddle this way forever."
Colby (thinking):"Well, probably when I'm Aubree's age I won't cuddle anymore."
Me:"Awwww, you're breaking my heart."
Colby:"That's the way life goes."

Have a wonderful Christmas season!