Merry Christmas!

It's the Holiday Season...

and a whoop-dee-do, a dickory dock, don't forget to hang up your sock... (inside joke with my sister Karen).

We are in full swing and a bit sad that Thanksgiving fell later this year. Since we travel for the holidays (and therefore must have our act together even earlier) we really don't get much time to enjoy our decorations and quiet family Christmas time. Both Don and I (and subsequently our kids) love to get festive (as Don says) so we cram a lot in without trying to make it feel pressured or rushed (multi-tasking skills go into overdrive)... but it always kinda does (at least to me).

However, we LOVE to see our family and friends (and get gifts ;) and Don would NEVER stay in warm weather for the holidays (and snow is preferred - can you all make that happen this year - PLEASE?!). I however think it might be fun to escape, just once. Christmas in the islands perhaps? Maybe even Christmas Island. Or even Iceland for Don. Just kidding everyone (except for maybe just a teeny tiny bit), and I'm sure I would regret it if I did.

So, I'm squeezing in ONE MORE thing (this posting) before we head out on Saturday. I just ran out of time to get other Christmas posts up and many of our busy events weren't even photo-documented since I forgot the camera most of the time (my multi-tasker broke down).

And one of my goals of this post (decided midway second paragraph) is to see how many parentheses I can use (even if it is annoying). I think I'm losing it a bit.

Cutting the Tree

We started a new ritual last year when we found a quaint Christmas tree farm - cutting our own tree. These trees are Sand Pines (or Scrub Pines) and they are native to Florida. Their needles are similar to a white pine. They aren't a deep, dark green - more of a "Florida" green as I call it - lots of sunshine mixed in.Grants favorite part was pulling the cart...Chosen, cut and conquered... Grant inhaling some fresh pine...
They have a nice scent - at first - but unfortunately it doesn't last like I remember my trees of youth. But we like having a native tree.Heading out...We even got a bit of education. The owners have bluebird houses and martin houses around the property to control insect damage without using pesticides. These are some of the nests and eggs found in the houses.Heading home...

Family Nature Time

During the Thanksgiving holiday, we managed to keep our caloric count in check by getting outside a bit. We hiked one of the many San Felasco trails...and found some insects also burning a few calories...Nate, future scientist, identifying this HUGE orb weaver for us...The allure of finding fossils was still high so we took everyone to our secret spot.Grant gettin' in on the action. And never complaining that these boots are actually two sizes too small...Like mother, like son...We were SO happy that Scotty and Dary could join us for the day as they passed through Gainesville on holiday travel. Scott and I were the last two to be pulled from the stream...The gang, post fossilizin'....Awww, we MISS you guys!!!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Sure they say that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line but I think the shortest distance between anything at all is the number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is nearly equidistant time between the two right now and I am already soooo far behind. Sometimes I think I should quit while I'm behind, call it good and just chill for the rest of the year... but I carry on like the rest of us and know that it is all worth it in the end and miss every second when its over. So, on that note I will FINALLY get these Thanksgiving posts up so that I can then begin to write Christmas letters, bake cookies, go to parties, finish shopping, wrap gifts, pack suitcases...

We had Don's family here for Thanksgiving and got to use our dining room for the very first time!!! Thanks to the handed down table from Don's parents and conference room chairs from Don's office, we had the whole crew at the table. It was pretty cool. We also got to use our full china set for the first time, allowing us to discover we are sorely lacking some key pieces. Everyone had a hand or two in preparing dishes and we had way too much food, especially since the kids eat like mice. Some other scenes from Thanksgiving day:

Most unusal: Ben (aka Percy Harvin) and Olivia playing together!! For a long time. And they were having lots of fun...Most usual: Prone Popka (affectionately pronounced "pah-ka")...Uncle Matt being bugged by the kids for one more spinning twirl while singing "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy"...Who Luvs Ya Uncle Matt? WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How did Tarzan do it?!?!

BeforeAfter

We ventured back to Bolen's Bluff recently. Sadly, this time without Flat Stanley. We again saw the horses...so note: if you want to see the wild horses at Paynes Prairie, go to Bolen's Bluff - we are two for two there.What's more rare than seeing wild horses in Paynes Prairie? Seeing Olivia and Grant voluntarily holding hands...

Fossilizing

Olivia and I had so much fun fossil hunting with her Brownie troop that we brought Grant and Don back with us the very next day. The kids were into it for about 20 minutes and then spent the rest of the time playing in the water and woods. Grant in Don's cub scout scarf that he was obsessed with for a few days...Don and I couldn't get enough. It is quite addicting, especially when you have successful finds. We found lots of shark teeth and ray mouth plates. Then I found a real treasure... a dolphin tooth - intact!Of course, we didn't know what most of these things were until I took them into work and had a fossil expert i.d. them for us. The dolphin tooth is estimated to be 1.8 - 5 million years old. And as it turns out, the horse tooth that Don found (and was bummed b/c it was "just a horse tooth") may be the find of the day. My colleague believes it came from a rare 3 -toed horse (precursors to the 2-toed). They were much smaller as this tooth is compared to the more common Equus tooth found in Florida. If he is correct, it is approx. 24 million years old! I need to confirm it with the head-honcho vertebrate fossil scientist so we know for sure. I need to get a good picture of the tooth on here...

Shark's Teeth in the Woods?

Olivia's Brownie troop met for a day of hiking and sharks teeth hunting at a nature park. Ms. Angela (troop leader) is giving instructions...First we went on a bubble gum hike - the girls had to find as many colors as they could using natural items. Whenever an item was found that she wanted to use, she would pull a small piece of bubble gum from the wad in her mouth and use it as glue to hold the item on her card. Fun idea even if it was a bit slimy. This really isn't a difficult task unless your child is missing three teeth in the most inappropriate places.Searching the creek...Surprisingly we found many teeth just lying right on top of the sand at the bottom of the stream bed. But these sieves were most useful when we wanted to scoop deeper.Shark's teeth. Score!Olivia and Thalia... not shy about jumping right in, socks/shoes and all...

My little homey

Moldy driveways. Is this something only Floridians get to experience? Although it looks much darker when wet, you can clearly see the before and after of Don's power washing. Four hours of his life was well spent.Four hours is a long time to wait for a driveway to be cleaned so that we can do something fun, but the weather was beautiful and the kids played outside.
My favorite grass is the muhly grass, which I didn't do such a good job of photographing below. I need to get 3 or 4 more of these plants - they are beautiful.And apparently somewhere along the way, Grant learned some interesting poses?!!? When I asked him to smile, he crouched to the ground, put his fingers up and gave a sly grin! What in the world?! I was both surprised and amused. Too funny. He has either inherited some of cousin Ben's charming humor or "Dance and Sing" day at school is putting a strong emphasis on hip, hop. My little homey...

Cranberry Thanksgiving Bread

In anticipation of Thanksgiving, we decided to make some cranberry bread. But this isn't just any cranberry bread. It is a secret recipe hidden behind a loose brick in the fireplace in Grandma's kitchen. And it is delish! This recipe is so famous and sought after, that a bakery owner actually tried to steal it from Grandma! But thanks to a smart granddaughter and a wary clam fisherman, the bakery owner was caught and the recipe was saved from exploitation.

Since those days of recipe secrecy, it appears Grandma (or her greedy ancestors) sold out and made the recipe public. So, if you would like to try this famous cranberry bread than you must read Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wendy and Harry Devlin. It's a good read and a good recipe.

A Day with Dad (Papa, actually)

The kids have created a play area in the woods behind their fort that reminds me of when I was growing up and my friends and I or Kevin and I would play "in the trees" in our yard all day long. For the most part, they just like to decorate it. And other than the logs they are using for chairs and tables, most of it is toys just scattered about. To me it looks like junk in the woods but to them each place has it's own place and use. Even the umbrella hanging in the tree... I guess.

There is a small pine tree there that they decided looks like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree so on a day off of school with Don, they chose to decorate it.

First, they took a hike to collect the decorations...Next came the decorating - mostly leaves and pine cones that Don hole punched and threaded.The end result. Hard to notice in these photos but they adorned it with fall leaves and pine cones. They are holding Snoopy and Spike (one of Snoopy's brothers) - my old stuffed animals - to represent the Peanuts gang.

Missing an old friend

It's just over a year since Dune passed away and we all still greatly miss him... even Harley.Dune loved the water but was soooo chicken to jump off a boat. That fear made it easy to take him on boat rides - he wouldn't escape for a free swim like other labs I know.He loved my parents house because we could just let him run and run and sniff and run...A true Florida dog...Who's who? Any true Dune friend would know that it is Dune on left - he licked anyone and anything ALL the time. (Brooks on right). 2006.Christmas was always a fave of Dune's...except for Santa. He had a complete dislike for the man, no matter who he was each year. I wish I had pics of him in full Santa attack but along with our puppy pics, they were taken pre-digital cameras. Dune was such a mellow dog that it made watching him go bezerk over Santa even more funny. He wouldn't stop barking until Mr. C left the house. Here you can still see the "I-haven't-take-my-eyes-off-you-yet-Mister!" look (as well as the look of distress on Robert's and Braden's faces... poor Santa never really got much love until the kids passed the age of 3).Can you find him?Playing football in the snow...I'm sure Dune and Ashe are having more than their share of fun in doggie heaven.We miss you!