My Condolences to All of You Stuck at Home in the Cold!

Yes, I know, we're spoiled but we started something two years ago that we cannot quit--an annual cruise to a warm location with Jim and Jill. It doesn't get much better than that! This year we left from Florida and visited Grand Cayman, Roatan, Honduras, Cozumel, Mexico, and Princess Cays--a private island in the Bahamas. We had a lovely 7 days of eating, sleeping, eating, lounging, eating, snorkeling, eating, zip lining, eating, scuba diving, eating, watching movies on the deck under the stars, and eating! Life was pretty darn good!

Dennis's catch of the day in Cozumel was a lovely balloon hat.
Holding stingrays in Grand Cayman
There is a sand bar a few miles out to sea where the stingrays congregate for free meals.





A sunset off of our balcony

The Elwoods, the Blotters, and our Boise friends, the Franklins and the Sheltons,

who have happened to be on all 3 cruises with us!

We're pretty sure we must have known each other in the pre-existence!

This photo was taken right after we gorged ourselves at the Crown Grille so I'm pretty sure all eight of us are sucking in our guts during the photo shoot!

Trying to get the monkey off my back!

Jill and I went ziplining while the guys went scuba diving, and this monkey really wanted the fruit in my backpack. When Jill tried to get him off, he bit her so I just had to take my backpack off of my shoulders and toss him to the ground! This would be AFTER he wrapped his tail around my neck and stuck the end of it in my mouth! I woke up the next morning and jumped on Dennis's back and started picking at his fleas, so who knows what disease I picked up!

A really hot couple!

(and walking advertisements for the Boston Red Sox!)

The Crown Princess. I still see her in my dreams!

The Elwoods and the Blotters in Cozumel. Notice the sweatshirts!

It was a little chilly that day but the water was still 78 degrees so who can complain?!

Eating...This is what we did for 95% of our cruise!

It's Christmas and It's Christmas Time in the City!

Toys R Us

The Famous FAO Schwartz piano

Rockefeller Center

Carnegie Deli

The family with Elders Bruckner and Farmer. Elder Farmer spent last Christmas at our house, and then got transfered to our ward for 1 week so he spent his 2nd Christmas with us too! Lucky or unlucky for him?!




Secret Santa gifts





Christmas presents from Santa

The Sunday before Christmas

Em at the mall telling Santa all of her wishes.

I have some catching up to do! You'd think I could stay on top of my blog during vacation, but eating chocolate took up waaaay too much of my time to be productive! I'm posting some photos of our Christmas day--it was great. We spent Christmas morning enjoying family time and eating Grandma Margaret's famous pizza pan cinnamon roll and egg nog--that I have had to learn how to make! We then spent the afternoon and evening playing games with the missionaries. A Secret Santa dropped off a whole box of gifts for them to open, and they really enjoyed the gifts. If you're reading this, thanks, Secret Santa!

We've always wanted to see NYC all dressed up for the holidays but life is just too busy in the weeks before Christmas, so we left home early on the 28th and took the train to Grand Central to see the sights. The morning and afternoon weren't too bad--we rode the ferris wheel at Toys R Us and ate the mile high sandwiches at Carnegie Deli. By evening, the crowds were crazy! Rockefeller Center was a mass of humanity. It was nuts! I'm glad we did it, but I'm not going back any time soon!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

We usually always decorate our tree on the 1st Sunday in December and make gingerbread houses on the first Monday, but Dennis ruined our schedule by having to make a trip to England on Sunday evening so our December traditions were moved to Saturday night. It was nice of Mother Nature to cooperate with us and send us a couple inches of snow to put us in the Christmas mood. We had fun making houses with the Victorinos on Saturday and playing in the snow after church on Sunday.

Update: I typed this up but did not get it posted, and since then we've had another snow storm, and.....drum roll....our first snow day! #@*!. So check out our photos of Frostine, the snowgirl we made yesterday afternoon.

This One's For You, Kylie!

If you asked our family what the top five things we missed about living in Cache Valley, watching Aggie basketball would be somewhere in that top five. There's nothing quite like an obnoxious crowd cheering on the Ags in the Spectrum! So when we found out USU would be playing Northeastern in Boston a few weeks ago, we jumped at the chance to watch them again. The Aggie cheering section was small but loud--a few navy-blues in a sea of red (there were quite a few other families there decked out in USU shirts and hats),and we had great seats because the game was played in a hockey arena. The darn Ags had to go and blow a 15 point lead a lose! When the man at the MassPike tollbooth gave Dennis a Utah quarter, we were sure it was our lucky day, however, it was not mean to be! We had to console ourselves with dinner at The Cheesecake Factory in the Prudential Center!

Look Who's Eleven!

My baby boy turned 11 on Saturday. How can that be?! He opted for a small party that included a sleep-ver this year. The boys ate pizza and cake and ice cream, went to the arcade, and then played Wii and made farting noises with their armpits all night. Let me tell you what, they are a lot less work than a house full of girls!

Cardon wanted a fishing cake this year, so here it is. Elwoods and Griffins--I hope you can see my tribute to "the log" at Tony Grove!

Halloween

I've found Halloween to be a little anticlimactic this year. Em dressed up for our ward Trunk or Treat, dancing, Music Maker's, Tolland's city office trick or treat, and preschool before the 31st ever arrived! Halloween this year was strangely warm, humid and windy--no jackets needed! This year Em was an angel with purple wings and a black eye--we called her the Avenging Angel! Cardon was some kind of creature whose eyes glowed pink intermittently(cant spell this word!), and Chiara and her friend Elyse were Thriller zombies. We always go to the Victorino's neighborhood, and let me tell you what, that neighborhood knows how to do Halloween! One family gave out an 8-pack of Reese's peanut butter cups AND a juice pouch (along with some religious tracts--quite a combo, if you ask me!) Another family, who lives at the end of a long driveway, gives out a huge bag of candy to their tenth visitor for the night, and Emmy happened to be the lucky winner! She got enough candy just from those two homes to call it quits! It was a fun night!

Preschool Fun

Yes, I knew when I started out on this blogging venture I'd never stay on top of it, so here are a few posts to catch all of you up on what's been going on at our house. Em's preschool is a lot of fun. She's been on a field trip to an apple orchard (forgot my camera), a pumpkin farm, and she's had a Halloween party.