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...