Christmas trees and Hot dog roasts

...They are some of our favorite things at Bill's and Louise' house.
We are really grateful to have some "distant" family close by. Jared's great aunt's sister lives in our area! His family is small-ish and pretty close, so Bill and Louise heard about our move to Naples last year. They have been really wonderful to invite us over and keep track of us a little.
This was another fun family activity that helped us enjoy the holiday season.


(Michael is trying out a paintball mask in this photo.)
Bill is a builder and designed their home together with Louise. The home has a hurricane safe shelter room and lots of other emergency preparedness features. They also added some great things for gatherings with their grandkids--like the fireplace on the back porch. They live in a little bit of a remote part of our city, so their backyard grass runs into the jungle. Louise wouldn't let the kids out on their own during our last visit because there had been recent sightings of panthers in the area. What a fun adventure to visit Bill and Louise!


Here's the group in front of the tall, beautifully decorated tree in the front room.

Magic of Christmas

Christmas arrived

We've been able to squeeze in some holiday celebrations already as a family (in the midst of finals).
A few of our favorite spots include Ave Maria Town's Celebration of Lights. Naples has a fun festival of lights downtown with "snow". And we love the Snowfest with real (man-made) snow to sled in.



We love these kids!!

like mother, like daughter...

At least this year's Santa is a little less Strange looking....

Got Wheels?

The weather has been so nice for the last month, one of our favorite past-times is getting outside to ride bikes.
This is our street on one of the days when nearly everyone made it out at the same time.
You can guess that the traffic isn't too heavy. The kids know how to scatter if a driver needs to get through and the students coming through are usually patient with our limited area to play.
Michael and Jordan are on the skateboard in front with helmets on.


Here's Tessa with one of the neighbors' bikes.



Jordan loves being "superfast" with all the big kids.


One afternoon, Jared removed the training wheels on Michael's bike. And Michael took off!


I had to drag him back inside that afternoon for dinner because he was so tired. He wouldn't stop!

Thanksgiving

...was a treat!
Most of the other students are like us without family close-by at the holidays.
So we were able to share the day with another law school family.



There were some yummy favorite dishes. We got to play outside in beautiful weather! And we made Grandma's popcorn ball turkeys!
Lots of reasons to be grateful!!

Here's Tessa

A few weeks ago I caught Tessa at her usual perch on the bathroom stool.
She loves being big and being a girl....