Happy Birthday

William and I made a special cake for his daddy's birthday and surprised him with his own tennis racquet so we can all play together now!  The cutest part was definitely how we sneakily made the cake without John seeing us.  

World at Brookdale

The school had an event to celebrate different cultures that included booths to visit throughout the school day and an after school event for families that included dances and food samples.  The kids had a blast! 

This bottom picture is to remind me what a sweet boy William really is.  This girl in his class seems very quiet and shy.  She was sitting by herself and he went up and asked her if she was ok and if he could sit with her and hang out.    No surprise everyone's favorite exhibition was the tae kwon do students.  I was shocked that they did demos with swords and num chucks, but they were real crowd pleasers! 

It's Christmas!

We didn't waste any time getting a tree up this year, since we knew we were going to skip our traditional post-Thanksgiving trip for a real tree.  I bought this pre-lit tree over the summer at a neighbor's garage sale (new in box).  I meant for it to be our second tree and have a Disney-only, but it's big enough to be the main tree and we don't have enough Disney ornaments (yet!).   

Two extra additions:  Thomas and friends track around the base and Rachel and William's Christmas stocking on the tree!

Disney Wonder

We had a Wonder-ful family vacation onboard the Disney Wonder to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary.  



Onboard: A lot of ice cream was consumed by all. There were also generous portions of wine, beer, and chocolate milk consumed by those parties who each favor those items. 

On embarkation day in Miami, we were onboard before our staterooms were available.  We went straight to the pool deck for lunch and William was the first one down the Mickey slide and into the pool.   In addition to the pool, we spent time at the movies:  Big Hero 6, Maleficent, and Guardians of the Galaxy were all showing.  We also went to the nightly Broadway-style musicals.

Castaway Cay:  Our first full day was on Disney's beautiful private island.  Ryan and John started the day with a 5K run and William and I joined them for beach time shortly thereafter.  An elaborate sand fortress was dug in between trips down Pelican Plunge water slides and cooling off dips in the water.  Our last stop was a trip to the island's post office where we ran into Olaf.

 

 

Characters:  We had photos with Minnie, Pluto and Chip & Dale.  The latter were the most hilarious character interaction I have ever seen.  First Chip (red) points out that William and Dale are both wearing blue shirts; then a tickle fights ensues; and both Dale and William end up hiding behind curtains.  Since neither fit completely behind the curtains, they were both pretty easy to find!

 

Pirate Night:  We enjoyed dressing up as our version of pirates and the deck show culminating in fireworks at sea.

Key West:  Our last full day was in port.  We enjoyed a trolley ride, stops at Hemingway's home and the Southernmost point, conch fritters and key lime pie on a stick.  Thanks to the very early wake-up call to get processed through immigration, everyone except John and Ryan were back at the ship by lunch.   The other two stayed to check out a few of the drinking establishments while the rest of us napped.

 

The End: We missed the traditional "See Ya Real Soon" party on the last night, since William fell asleep at dinner at never woke up.   We had already collected the character pictures and signatures we needed, so we just all called it a night.  Our day home was long thanks to a 10:30 arrival at FLL for a a 4 p.m. departure.  Thankfully we had a fully charged ipad and a backpack of "stuff" to entertain the littlest traveler.  His behavior impressed a fellow traveler at our gate who bought him a king sized bag of M&Ms as a reward.  That may have been the reason for the undoing once we actually got on board! LOL. 

Leaves

If you click through these fast enough, you can almost see the run and jump!

Halloween 2014

Friday I fulfilled my PTA and room mom duties at the school, since I knew I wanted to be at home that day already.  First up was helping in the office as school started by handing out tardy slips for the first half hour of school.  Then I came back in the afternoon with snacks for the kindergarten Halloween party!  William knew I was coming (since he consulted on the snack selection - apple slices and caramel dip) but he was surprised when I brought Grandma Hilary along!  It was a good thing she was there, because we ran a Bozo-like bucket game that definitely needed two adults.

After school, we walked home to get ready for trick-or-treating!  It was a cold and blustery evening, but William was so excited that the adrenaline and running around must have kept him warm!  We got our first doorbell ring around 4:45 as we were still getting him ready, and when we headed out at 5 p.m. most of the little kids in the neighborhood were just starting, too.

 Whoa!  Muscles!

 First house! 

We picked up William's best buddy, Dylan, and his baby turtle - I mean, brother - and parents and headed through the neighborhood.  The 5 adult to 3 child ratio was about perfect!  Those big boys were a lot faster than Tyler (or the parents or grandma) but they mostly behaved and didn't get out of eye sight.   We went a block further than we ever have before and discovered this guy from Ghostbusters!  Shortly after we turned for home and made it back - cold but happy - to have dinner and candy and pass out treats to older kids.  Even with it being a Friday night, there didn't seem to be much traffic after we got back.  I think the cold and the early start both helped that.  Most little kids were inside by 6:30 and the big kids inside by 8.