Thanksgiving

We've finally started establishing some traditions with our families so now every year we celebrate Thanksgiving at my brothers. This year we had 28 people!! Sharon, Colleen's mom, is an amazing cook and prepares most of the food. I always bring sweet potatoes and green bean casserole and Colleen makes her yummy spinach dip. This was Rudy's first Thanksgiving and as you can see he enjoyed his meal thanks to Grandpa Mike. Most of the day we just hung out, ate, and then ate some more. After dinner Jesse started the fire pit so we spent most of the night out there playing Catch Phrase. We were SO LOUD!! Jesse said he walked down the street and could easily hear us. I guess it's good that most of their neighbors are old because nobody complained :) The first couple of pictures were taken for my school. One of my professors favorite holidays is Thanksgiving so for extra credit we had to take a picture with our family, crazy hats, the family, pet, a mashed potato sculpture and me eating cranberry sauce. Don't you like the mashed potato turkey? We did such a good job with it that I got 12 out of 10 possible points! Of course I love the picture...who knows maybe we've started another tradition.

Eric's Company Picnic

Eric is working for a company welding trains and they recently had an open house. His family was invited to come and check out the trains, see his job and have lunch. Of course we wanted a picture so I asked the security guard to take our photo. Colleen an Leiha came too but we didn't get a chance to take the picture before they had to go. Anyway, we were having a hard time getting Rudy to look at the right time so for some reason the security guard thought the balloons would help. After the picture we certainly didn't want to keep the balloons but Eric felt bad and didn't want to just let them go at work. He tried pawning them off before finally releasing them. Even though the day was kind of cold and windy it was sunny...doesn't Eric look nice in my shades.

Halloween

Bumblebee Bailey

Riley a.k.a. John Mayer

For the past three years we've been getting together either at our house or Jesse and Colleen's to carve pumpkins. This year Colleen's family was over too so we had a lot of good carvings. Rudy wasn't a big fan of his pumpkin but loved the Cheerios :)

Chik-fil-A Premier Night

One day while I was at work one of my coworkers mentioned that the new Chik-fil-A in Alliance Town Center was giving away a year's worth of free food to the person who writes the best 100- word essay about Chik-fil-A. I like chicken and I like free stuff so I said, "Sure I'll write an essay." A couple of weeks after submitting my essay I received an invitation to Chik-fil-A Premier Night for free food, prizes and activities. This was beyond exciting. I was also able to bring Jill and the kids along with me. We had chicken sandwiches, chicken nuggets, waffle fries, sodas, brownies and milkshakes. I also won a beach towel for answering a Chik-fil-A trivia question. I didn't end up winning the raffle for the 1 year worth of free food but it was a fun night. You can read my essay below, I did it without any help.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, it was the age of chicken it was the age of beef. EAT MOR CHIKIN."

Jeremy ~ Guest Blogger

2010 Family Pics

Homecoming 2010

For some crazy reason Keller HS scheduled homecoming for a Saturday game. Well this causes the girl's a lot of stress...do we wear the mum on Friday to school or just to the game Saturday? I'm thinking the mum's are super expensive so let's wear them every chance we get :) Anyway, Amanda decided not to wear her mum to school Friday morning because last year homecoming was on a Saturday too and she did wear but apparently felt like most didn't. We drop the mum off on Thursday night because they're so big you have to figure out a way to wear it and the safety pins sure aren't gonna' hold it. Friday morning rolls around and of course every body's got there mum except Amanda. I get a call from Riley around 9 asking if I'll go to Amanda's house to get it for her. Of course I didn't mind. Problem is she doesn't have a key and I'm gonna' have to jump the gate!! That is definitely NOT a good idea so Riley volunteers to go and jump it for me, get inside, get the mum and then get back to school. All the while I'm supposed to be at work by 9:30 so the timing's looking really iffy. So yes I picked my child up from school to take him to break into his girlfriends house to get the mum and finally every body's happy :)

Learning to Mow

For whatever reason Bailey decided she wanted to learn to mow the lawn...crazy girl right! So here she is with Jeremy and doing a great job I might add.

Rain or Shine

These pictures aren't as clear as the rest because on the second day of our trip it rained hard! No worries, this only made the trip better! The winds picked up and the waves grew stronger making for perfect boogie boarding conditions. We had so much fun playing in the rain! Later that day Riley, Bailey and I dug a tunnel through the sand under Jill's lounge chair. Just as Riley was about to pass through the tunnel for the first time it collapsed. :(

5th Avenue

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5th Avenue is the local hot spot in Playa del Carmen. There are plenty of restaurants, bars, shops and street performers. Riley is a very picky eater and was not real impressed with the food at the resort so he was quite excited to find a McDonald's. He ordered a McNifica which is the Mexican version of a double cheeseburger. Bailey found a neat bar that had swings in lieu of barstools. As displayed by Riley in the last photo we were all quite tired after playing in the sun all day and walking up and down 5th Avenue all night.

Snorkeling in Puerto Morelos

We had a great time during our snorkel trip. We saw eel, starfish, baracuda, crabs and lots of colorful fish. We also saw a lion fish which we were told can cause illness if touched by humans. The guide removed it from the water so he could later kill it, apparently they're not real popular among the locals.

El Gran Gigante Blanco

The following are the thoughts and opinions of Guest Blogger, Jeremy Vaughan, and in no way reflect those of my lovely wife, Jill.

These pictures were taken after we returned from our snorkeling trip. We were in a charming little fishing village called Puerto Morelos. We had a little time before our shuttle took us back to the hotel so we did some exploring. There were some locals struggling to push a fishing boat into the sea. Just when they were about to give up they looked and saw their salvation,"el gran gigante blanco" (the great white giant). They called me over and I helped them push the boat into the water. The men all cheered and lifted me to their shoulders, the villagers brought me small goats and chickens to show their apprecaition and children asked for my autograph. It was pretty spectacular.