Sunset Dinner Cruise

We had a lovely all girls gondola ride through the canals of Ft. Lauderdale. We had a yummy dinner, watched the sunset and saw beautiful Christmas lights all while being "Peeping Toms" into multi-million dollar homes. It was a great night. 

Deep Sea Fishing

 

Trevor went all out this year with Bruxen's Christmas gift. Bruxen loves to fish and so Trevor arranged a deep sea fishing charter as his gift. The kids all went and each caught a "keeper". They caught grouper, red snapper and king fish. The moms stayed home and cooked up the yummy fish for dinner. The kids all had a blast!

Christmas

 

Christmas Day was a lot of fun this year. We got off to a late start as we slept in after being exhausted from The Amazing Race the day before. The kids made monkey bread while Trevor and I finished off some last minute things. I was so tired I forgot to fill stockings the night before. Trevor was working on creating a video of The Amazing Race to show everyone later on. It was worth the wait...

We had a nice time opening presents. My favorite gift was Kaylee's gift. She created a jar full of her favorite memories with me from over the years. It brought me to tears. It made realize that it's not the expensive things that matter, but the day to day things, "being there" that has mattered most. 

Trevor went all out on Bruxen's gift. Bruxen loves fishing, so Trevor setup a surprise deep sea fishing trip for him. In order to present it in a creative way, he had him open a fish puzzle. He had to put together a 250 piece puzzle, then once complete, flip it over, complete a word puzzle that read "Bruxen is going deep sea fishing". All this was happening, while the rest of us are cleaning up the living room and doing meal prep to get things ready before Stacie, Patrick, Matthew, Andrew and Shelli arrived for lunch. It was big hectic, but everything turned out lovely. Phew.

The meal turned out yummy. We had brisket, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, Grandma's pickle dip, Mike's smoked cheese and sausage dip, and lots of Christmas candy. After lunch, the adults did a white elephant gift exchange and then we all played Stacie's fish bowl game. It was loud and there were lots of laughs. 

We always try to keep Christ in Christmas. To do this, we watched The Nativity Story movie and attended our church's Candlelight Service. We are so blessed and never want to lose sight of the gift of Jesus in our daily lives. 

The Amazing Race

We just finished our 3rd Annual Amazing Race Christmas Edition. Trevor did an amazing job of planning it. We had some new participants this year, as Trevor's family flew to Florida for the week. Trevor once again nailed it as our Game Master. We started off in Jupiter at noon and ended at the Sandy light show in West Palm at 8 pm. In between, we went to Du Bois Park, Jupiter Beach, played 18 holes of mini golf, had gourmet milkshakes, ate octopus at Topside, bowled two rounds, visited the new Busch Wildlife Centre, traveled to Palm Beach Island for Christmas Carols and Senior Pictures, visited The Square and finally Sandy. This year's winners were the Candy Canes. They had amazing team spirit. Thanks Trevor for all your hard works!!