The Christmas Adventure - Part 3

Here are a few more pictures from our Michigan Christmas Adventure. The weather was a bit warmer today so the snow was a little heavier which was perfect for snowmen. We had great fun. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as we enjoyed making them.
Love and warm hugs,
Steph, Anna, and (a very tired) Jaiden

The Christmas Adventure - Part 2

Today was pretty low key. The weather was a bit worse than we thought it was going to be so we just stayed around the house and cooked. The excitement for the day was that Anna learned how to use the snow blower! On the third round, the blower broke so we had to shovel. No big deal though, Jaiden was a big help. We're hopping to get out and sled tomorrow so I'll post more pictures soon.
Love and warm hugs to you all,
Steph, Anna and Jaiden

Our car after sweeping it off once already. (I think it had 4 inches in as many hours!)

The Christmas Adventure Begins

So, if you've been reading along this year, you know that we've decided to get a little crazy and travel north for the holidays; WAY NORTH! We decided to visit PatPat and Mimi on Grand Haven Michigan. (That's about in the middle of the pinkie.) It's about a 14 hour drive for us so we decided to take 2 day for the drive. The first night we did really good and made it to Indianapolis for the night. We wanted to get an early start the next day because we heard that there was a front moving in. When we woke up on Sunday morning, the high was 9 (I think.) When we got into the car, the thermostat read 6 and just went down from there. The lowest it got was -1. Needless to say, we didn't get out of the car. When we talked to Pat, she said it was about 12 here so... Anna and I were fascinated but the dropping mercury but Jaiden was ... asleep and unimpressed. It was VERY windy so it was hard to tell when it started snowing or if it was just the wind blowing the snow off the fields but it was beautiful. When we crossed the MI broder, it started to snow pretty heavy. Then it got a little worse... and a little worse still. Me being a southern girl, I figured it would be wimpy to stop and wasn't this how it was all of the time up here??? Well, we made it here safely and we were greeted with a warm hugs and apple pie in the table. (Really!) Later, when we were watching the news, we found out that we drove through one of the worst storms this area has seen in a long time. There were/are blizzard warning out for the whole coast. All is well now and we are having a wonderful time! Jaiden LOVES the snow. We had to go out today and but him snow pants, boots, and new gloves. (they really don't sell the proper snow attire in GA. go figure.) He has no problem putting all of the stuff on. Today we ventured out onto the back deck and slid down the stairs on the flying saucer. I think tomorrow, we're going to find some real hills. The weather should be warming up a bit so that we have a good ride home but I'll keep you posted with lots of pictures.
Love and warm hugs to you all!
Steph, Anna, and Jaiden

It does really say 0 degrees at 11:31 am!

Somewhere in Indiana

Somewhere in Michigan. (and this was not the worst. we could still see the car in front of us. All I have to say is thank God for the Spider!)

'

Patpat and Mimi's road!

My poor car...

My crazy, beautiful wife.

She did put more clothes on to go "play" (and shovel).

Our evening craft project.

Pat, blowing off the driveway.

Oh no!!! We lost the baby!!!

A new christmas Tradition???

This past weekend, we tried our hands at making gingerbread houses. I went and got ALL of the fixins'. We decided to do graham crackers instead of real gingerbread because Jen wanted to make then eat her house and it really worked out for the better. The kids did GREAT and the adults had fun too. I was planning on making one too but Jaiden did a bit more eating than decorating so I just "helped"with his. I showed Charlotte how to use the ziplock piping bag a I was amazed at how well she did. She did here whole house just about all by herself! Enjoy the pics and Happy Holiday to you all.
Love and hugs,
Stephanie, Anna and Jaiden

The gang!

The evidence!

The process!

Charlotte's house

Jen's house

Jaiden (and Mama's) house

The Village

A random picture I couldn't resist.

Thanksgiving 2008 - the day after

On Friday, we decided to go fishing and Grandpa Guy gladly agreed. (As you will see in the pics, he's the one that does most of the work.) My mom has her favorite spot on New Syrmna at the end of the beach where there is an inlet to the inter coastal waterway. It's beautiful! There is a lighthouse across the water and you get to see all of the boats coming and going. With all of the traffic, I didn't really expect to catch anything (we go just for "casting practice") but we actually caught a lot!!! I think our total count was 7 white fish, 1 blow fish and 1 stingray in 3 hours! Jaiden was so-so about the fishing but he loved playing in the sand with his trucks. He and Nanay took a nice long walk and I even found a whole (dead) sand dollar. He did get excited when we caught something and he'd come running over. After we all got our fill, we would unhook them and wavy bye-bye to the fish. I was brave enough to bait my own hook and unhook the fish but gran-gran was a different story. At one point, we saw the dolphins swimming in too! They were having a blast jumping up and splashing all around. I did a little more of my artistic photography and we called it another great day...

Stay tuned for our next adventure - Christmas in Michigan!

Happy Holidays and Love and Hugs to you all!!!

Steph, Anna and Jaiden

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Thanksgiving 2008

This year, we took our annual trek to Florida for Thanksgiving. Recently, the uncles have gotten the go-carts up and running again and what fun. (For a few years, there were no go-carts but trying to play volleyball in the dark was quite a blast.) Anyways, we had great fun and lots of great food. This year, someone found a little battery operated go-cart that was made for kids. If didn't have a battery in it but Jaiden didn't mind one bit. I think it's a good think he's the only young one now because they would have had to fight to sit in it. I'm glad that it wasn't working though. He would have been all over the place. As for the "adults", they take their racing very seriously with race charts and all. I think most of the carts made it to the end of the day the adults however, were a different story. We just had a few wrecks and narrowly avoided a trip to the ER but all if well now. I got to do a little artistic photography and these are a few of my favorites.

All 8 carts lined up and ready for the next race. After every race, they all had to get out and swap stories and carts.

Father and son... (Tommy and Steven)

Can you get any prettier!!!

Teresa is the designated family photographer so I though I'd get a shot of her...

Maritza was the track assistant this year. Both her and her sister are growing up to be such beautiful young ladies.

Jaiden in one of the big boy carts; trying it our for next year. (or maybe the next...)

just a little wreck...

and another one...