November 29 - Amazing Race/Scavenger Hunt & Horseback Riding

My kids look forward to Thanksgiving break for several reasons. They get to see the Tampa side of the family and several members of my family. They love seeing all their cousins and at the farm, they love the horses. Another thing they love and look forward to? Uncle Brian's Farm...scavenger hunt..for lack of better turn. Last year the kids asked him to do an Amazing Race this year and he, along with Uncle Bryan, delivered. 

It was Team Julia/Andrew vs Team Victoria/Luke. This race included 2 miles of running so Team J/A had an inherent advantage. However, the race was still close! The race began with 1 person from each team (Andrew vs Victoria for leg 1) running from the top of the driveway to the gate. They had to plant a flag and then run back. Leg 2 (Julia vs Luke) had to run to the gate to get the flag and race back to receive the next clue.

Team J/A had a sizable lead off the bat. The kids had various challenges including moving wood planks, building and hanging bird feeders, finding horseshoes, clovers, coloring books in the house and rope swinging. At the end of the race they had to run another mile each and then do the rope challenge again. Competition was fierce was Team J/A prevailed! Team V/L won last year so they are already calling Thanksgiving 2019 the "tiebreaker" (actually, I'm not sure if they said that or if I just made that up, it's been a long week LOL). 

On the last full day, the kids went horseback riding (in addition to me, Jill and 
Greg). We celebrated Uncle Brian's birthday with chocolate cake and a happy birthday sign Uncle Bryan spearheaded (because the pies weren't enough hehe). We had such a relaxing time. My favorite thing about the farm is that the kids play outside literally all day long. We have to ring an old fashioned giant bell to get them to come in and eat. The only thing that would have made the week better was seeing Aunt Katherine, Uncle Jay and Uncle Chris. 

After a fantastic week in Tampa and the farm, it was time to head back to reality. Now....Christmas is around the corner!

Jillian & Chan

Amazing Race - Andrew & Victoria running 

Rope Challenge

Birdfeeder Challenge

Andrew & Luke both have strong personalities and sometimes clash, but overall they had fun together

Julia will spend the next 3 months begging us to move to NC, she loves Victoria so much 

We can't wait to celebrate Christmas with Uncle Bryan and Karma

November 28 - Farm Life

After an amazing long weekend in Tampa it was time for.....the farm! We arrived around 4.30pm on Tuesday while Greg, Jill and the kids got there 30min afterwards. Bryan was also there, as well as Chan, Brian's new boyfriend. The kids immediately got out of the car and sprinted to the barn to see the horses and play in the hay. Jillian was hesitant meeting the horses at first but she quickly learned most of their names. Meanwhile, Julia, Luke, Victoria and Andrew remembered every horse and greeted them like long lost friends. 

Julia and Victoria put together a quest for Luke and Andrew, complete with clues and puzzles. The boys accepted the challenge (and were a little frustrated the girls hovered around them offering helpful hints) but overall they all had fun with it. The first night Bryan put together a fire pit in the backyard and the kids roasted hotdogs for dinner and made s'mores. Yummy! Needless to say, the s'mores were a huge hit!!

JD and Luke set up the tent the second night and Julia, Luke and Victoria all slept outside. They attempted a campout like this last year and Julia was the only one who made it through the night. I'm happy to report that all three of them survived!! It was chilly but they made it through!

Okay...Thanksgiving dinner. For the last several years, JD and Craig pretty much handled everything. This year we decided to try something new with everyone pitching in and making a dish. Here is how is all played out:

Turkey: Christine, Brian and Chan

Gravy: Brian and Chan

Stuffing: Brian

Carrots: Chan

Mashed Potatoes: Greg

Sweet Potato Casserole: Jill

Green Bean Casserole and Broccoli Salad: JD

Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie & Apple Pie: Christine

Overall-it was a team effort and it was delicious!! Thank you to everyone for chipping in. This was definitely a low stress way to handle everything. We all stuffed ourselves full of food and had a wonderful evening. 

The putting together the quest for the boys

Cousin love

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 28 - Weedon Island Preserve

Grammie had a great idea one day-let's go to Weedon Island Preserve. Weedon Island Preserve is an approx 3.2k acre natural area with over 4 miles of trails, boardwalks and a 45' tall Observation Tower. There is also a Cultural Natural History Center but it was unfortunately closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. It's a well known birding area and you can rent canoes and kayaks to experience the trail. We just did part of a trail and the boardwalk and it was beautiful. JD had Julia and Luke counting the types of organisms they saw and they were getting into it. 

Next time you are in the Tampa Bay area, check this place out. It's beautiful and so peaceful!

November 27 - Tampa Adventures

well...we kind of have 3 out of 4 looking at the camera

JD drove to Tampa with Luke and Jillian and had a rather uneventful car ride. This was Luke's first time being responsible for helping with Jillian in the car and he absolutely rocked it! They stopped for the night in Pensacola beach and arrived in Tampa on Saturday afternoon. Luke and Leah were super excited to see each other and played for hours. They especially loved climbing the big oak tree in the front yard of Grammie's house! Luke also had a blast playing video games with his uncles, showing off his skills (JD told me Luke was talking a lot of smack!). 

Julia and I flew into town Sunday evening and no joke, within 5min of seeing each other they were already arguing with each other. Ah, the joyful life of siblings. On Monday, JD and I took the kids to the children's museum and the kids loved it! We started at the top level of the museum which had a few tents set up, a "fishing" area and reading zone. We then headed to the 2nd level which was the best part of the museum.

They had all sorts of cool sections, including a fire true, dance area, paper airplanes, physical play, animal sounds and so much more. The kids loved loved this area and didn't want to leave. After spending a few hours there, we had a quick lunch at Jimmy Johns and were back to the house. 

That evening, after a delicious dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, Julia played "Villians" a new boardgame with JD, Uncle Chad and Uncle Greg. They had fun! 

Museum fun

Poor attempt at family photo...we missed Luke completely LOL

November 25 - Coach Alyssa Gets Married!

Julia, Coach Alyssa, Jill, Lucy

Last year on the way to Saturday morning diving practice...

"Coach Alyssa said that if I do a reverse flip, I can be a flower girl in her wedding!" - Julia

"I'm sure you misunderstood her, that can't be correct." - me

Five minutes after getting to the pool...Julia does a reverse flip and proceeds to get very excited about being in a wedding. I was still convinced she misunderstood the coach but after speaking to Alyssa, she told me she wanted all three girls (Julia, Jill and Lucy) in her wedding. When Alyssa was their age, her gymnastics coach got married and invited 1 girl from the team. Alyssa told herself she would never let that happen to her girls if she was coaching. Well, Julia stopped diving at the end of May and I told her not to get her hopes up about this wedding since she wasn't even diving anymore. Coach Alyssa had other ideas. She still wanted Julia! A few months ago we went to David's Bridal to pick out flower girl dresses and the girls got to see Alyssa pick out her wedding dress. So fun!

The wedding last weekend (the Saturday before Thanksgiving). Since we always travel to Florida that weekend, JD headed out with Luke and Jillian while I booked flights for me and Julia. We were initially planning on having JD take Apollo with him but I was very worried about him getting loose at the farm so we decided to hire a dog sitter. Friday night was the wedding rehearsal and the wedding was Saturday afternoon. After months of non-stop rain, coach Alyssa and Scott (her new hubby) luckily had a gorgeous afternoon with clear blue skies! 

Julia, Jill and Lucy all looked beautiful. I was especially excited to see Julia in something other than athletic wear and her hair in something other than a low ponytail. She said the bun was uncomfortable but she had an absolute blast dancing! She also tried to catch the bouquet. After the wedding the girls came to our house to change and then headed to Lucy's for a sleepover. It was a great wedding!

Hair in a HIGH BUN - I loved it!

 

My mini me (if not in looks, definitely in personality)

Love her

November 14 - Sneak Peak

The last time our family had professional pictures taken was....December 2004 at our wedding. Yes, almost 14 years ago! JD has been mentioning for years that we should get pictures taken and I always said "Maybe next year." Well, this year I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get some nice pictures taken. My friend Alli is a photographer and we booked a "fall mini" session last week. Luckily, the rain stopped the day of our photo session and we headed over to a local park to get some pics. It was muddy, the mosquitoes were terrible but the sun was shining!

Here are some of the pics JD and I took on our phones. 

Julia...in...a...DRESS!!

Luke's "model" pose

Mom & Jules

November 13 - Apollo Radcliffe

I've been devastated the last 2 months since Amelia crossed the rainbow bridge (I still have bouts of crying). Julia and Luke were ready for a new dog almost immediately while Jillian has become deathly afraid of dogs. Jillian's fear of dogs is what prompted me to consider getting another dog sooner rather than later. Julia and Luke suggested a golden retriever and as cute as they are...our lives have been designed around a black dog.

We have super dark floors, both cars have black interior and I wear almost all black. Could we handle blonde fur everywhere? JD and I thought back to Gainesville, where we had off-white tile floors with two black dogs (Amelia and Guinness). It was horrible-I swept multiple times a day and our house always looked filthy. So..we (I) decided we needed a black or dark brown dog. 

I follow a few re-homing and rescue sites on Facebook. Two Fridays ago, a local shelter posted a picture of a male, black lab. I looked at JD and said "this looks like a pure bred black lab." JD said it was probably part pitbull and promptly forgot about it. I didn't forget about it...the next day I took Julia and Jillian to the shelter to check him out. He was totally calm in his kennel and we went into a room for a meet and greet. He was very chill and didn't jump up on anyone. We spent about 15min with him and he was very relaxed. On our way out, we passed by another dog going into the room and they had a positive interaction. I sent JD a picture of the dog and a video and after a quick call (Who is the dog in that picture? You are at the animal shelter?), I put in an application for him. We picked him up a week ago and he's been fantastic! 

making himself comfortable

So, first things first. The name. My name for him was Radcliffe Emerson. No one in the family was on board with this. JD and I were at opposite ends of the name spectrum as I like human names for pets (like Radcliffe or Oliver or Charles) and he likes animal names (like Shadow). We finally told Julia and Luke to come up with 5 names they both like and we would pick one. So....welcome Apollo! I added Radcliffe as his middle name because I couldn't resist sneaking it in!

He's a snuggler!

Health status. Well, our poor Apollo (our vet estimates he's 1.5-2 years old) was not being taken care of properly. He is 20 lbs underweight and riddled with worms, including heartworms. Heartworms are spread through infected mosquitoes. The good news is that they are treatable and cannot be spread from dog to dog. He is taking an oral antiobiotic twice a day for 30 days (this kills the parasites on the worms and weakens the worms) and then will have 2 shots to kill the actual heart worms. After the shots it takes another month for the worms to die, break down and leave his system. The tough part about all of this is that he cannot exercise until the treatment is done. If his heart rate gets too high, he's at risk of a stroke. So we aren't playing ball with him and he's restricted to short walks only. 

Luke & Apollo sleeping the other night

He's only been with us for a week, but he's been great. He is extremely calm. He doesn't jump and we have yet to hear him bark. He survived a girl scout meeting with no issues LOL. He was definitely in a home previously who taught him not to eat human food as Jillian threw a plate of rice and chicken on the floor the other day and he just stood there looking at it. 

I'll be sure to update everyone with Apollo's adventures with us. As my friend Jill said...he hit the jackpot being adopted by us!!

The name list

Welcome Apollo Radcliffe!

November 6 - Happy Halloween

Happy belated Halloween! Our school doesn't do any official Halloween celebration but the 2nd grade does a storybook character parade. Luke chose to dress up as Drake from his favorite book series, Dragon Masters. All his "costume" required was brown pants, a long sleeved orange shirt and brown hair. After I sprayed his hair brown he asked me (100% seriously) "Wow mom, do you think anyone will recognize me with this dark hair?" So cute!

For Halloween evening, the weather forecast was calling for a bad storm with a possible break in rain around 6.30pm. All of the local businesses and churches planning Trunk or Treat's cancelled their events.

I was optimist we could squeeze in trick-or-treating before the rain hit so we did our usual pizza party around 5.45pm with neighborhood friends and then headed out. We managed to make it back to our street and were 3 houses from home when the storm hit. The big kids though it was super fun to run home in the torrential downpour while I was huddled into a neighbors doorjamb with Jillian (they gave me an umbrella to make it home). 

While we were having Halloween fun, JD was in Boston for a conference. He booked an AirBnB right on the water and got tot see fall leaves. So jealous!