Christmas cards

Well, I have decided not to do Christmas cards this year to eliminate stress and spend less, so if you didn't get a card from us, don't worry!!! We did have our wonderful friend, Terri Zollinger (www.terrizphoto.com), take our photo around downtown Celebration while Blake was here over Thanksgiving break. Here are a couple of my favorite ones. It is so hard to get six people to smile at the camera at the same time! Needless to say, Carly was not in a smiling mood. Anyhow, hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a very happy & healthy New Year!

Carly at 6 1/2 months

Took these photos over the past couple weeks and thought they were cute. I REALLY can't believe how fast she is growing. It's like 0 to 7 months in the blink of an eye!

Camp La-No-Che

(When you click on this photo, make sure to scroll to the side so you see all the pictures.)

Justin had the privelege of going on his first campout with the Cub Scouts to Camp La-No-Che for the Fun with Son program. He & Roger arrived on Friday afternoon to set up camp and stayed until Sunday afternoon. I didn't think it was possible to pack so many activities into one camping weekend, but here is a list of all the things they did... tree climbing, archery, basketball, volleyball, rock climbing, pinewood derby races, sack races, egg races, boxcar races, bb gun shooting, eating in the mess tent, gutter boat races, bonfires, and carving a really cool walking stick. I probably missed of few things, but you get the picture. I'm sure they'll go back again...

School Bus Races

What is this, you ask? Why it's a school bus speeding past thousands of cheering fans on a figure eight track with 10-15 other school buses, just waiting to crash into one another! How fun is that? If you've never been, you must experience the School Bus Races at Orlando Speedworld in Bithlo at least once. Who knows, it might turn into an annual event for your family like it is for ours!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. First of all, Blake is here with us, and that makes things so much more fun. Second, we have so much to be thankful for. Third, the weather is finally beautiful. And last, but not least, we had a wonderful day at Roger & Sharon's house! We arrived around 1 pm (after relaxing at home, biking, running, etc.), ate "dinner" at 2 pm, went boating and fishing, ate pie, and then enjoyed a huge bonefire with both of their neighbor families. We couldn't have had a better day... unless of course all of our family members where there :)

Blake Playing the Stratocaster

One of Roger's co-workers, Josh, lent Blake one of his many guitars while he's here for Thanksgiving... thanks Josh!!! Blake's choice was a very nice Fender Stratocaster, which you can see him playing below. He's pretty good for only having played for a few years!

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Spiders Can Be Beautiful Too

I read that there are over 700 species of spiders in Florida. Wow! We see lots of them, but none as pretty & interesting as this Spiny Orb Weaver (which is related to the Golden Orb, aka Banana Spider) which hitched a ride on the front of Roger's jeep. Cool, huh?

Chili Cookoff

Some friends of ours decided to host a Chili Cookoff party last weekend to celebrate family, friends & fall. About 8 families met at Lakeside Park in downtown Celebration with what they hoped was prize-winning homemade chili. Unfortunely, my recipe for Sweet Italian Chili didn't take home any awards. Tim won for spiciest, Melissa won for most unique (with my white chicken chili recipe!) and Scott won for best tasting. I have never eaten so much chili in my life! Luckily Jeff made some homemade beer to wash the chili down, which was very tasty. Most of the kids didn't care about eating chili, but the had a great time tearing around the park, riding bikes, digging in the sand, etc. All in all a good time was had by all!

Yeah, It's Fall

Well, it's fall Florida-style, that is. The weather has cooled to the mid-70s to low 80s during the day and 50s and 60s at night. We have enjoyed spending more time outside, at the park, riding bikes, etc. Here's a shot of Justin & Chase with their friends Ava & Jake playing in the leaves in the front yard.

Carly's Crawling

Here's a quick little video montage of Carly's crawling capabilities. Pretty darn good for 5 1/2 months!

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Halloween

Forgot to post the few pictures we have from Halloween. Justin wore a few costumes... a scary monster (at Roger's work party), Batman (at school) and a crazy snowboarder (for trick-or-treating), while Chase was a skeleton and Carly was a Tootsie Roll.

We had a great day with Halloween parades at school, an always-fun annual Halloween party at the Sweeney's house and then trick-or-treating. The boys have a great time collecting candy, but have almost more fun staying on the porch to greet other trick-or-treaters and hand out sugary treats.

Chase with Walker & Grant at the Montessori Halloween parade

Justin the crazy snowboarder at the Sweeney's Halloween party

Carly the Tootsie Roll at Roger's office Halloween party

Carly at 5 months

Here are a few of the latest pictures of Carly at 5 - 5 1/2 months old...

In the jumper

Driving naked at Terri's house

With Dad & Justin

With Nami

One raised brow

More Panama City Pictures

Here are a few pictures of our time at the beach while we were in Panama City Beach for the Ironman Florida competition...

Roger's First Ironman!!!

A big congratulations to Roger for finishing his first (and not last!) Ironman competition in Panama City Beach, Florida! He completed the race in an hour less than he expected and he looked great when he finished. We are so proud of him!!!

Here are his stats...
Swim Time (2.4 miles) - 1:10:38
Bike Time (112 miles) - 6:02:01
Run Time (26.2 miles)- 5:26:49
Total Time - 12:55:35




And here is a slide show with more pictures from our time at the beach, race registration, race preparations, rooting Roger on from the sidelines and the finish line...

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I am encouraging Roger to post his story of the Ironman experience on our blog, so look for that coming soon!

Mechanics

While Chase was away at Nami & Popi's house, Justin helped Roger change the oil in the Jeep. If you thought Justin was starting auto mechanics early, take a look at Carly! As soon she's walking, I'm sure they'll have her rolling under the Jeep on the creeper :)

Way to Go Dan!!!

Our friend Dan Sams, who has been bravely fighting brain cancer since mid-July of this year, just completed Disney's innaugural Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 6.5K race last Saturday. As you can see below, lots of family & friends joined him in the race and were inspired by his strength. They even stayed at MGM Studios for the after-party until 1 am the next morning!!!

Although Roger & I weren't able to join him in the race, we did get a chance to wish him luck earlier that afternoon and snap this photo....

Please continue to keep Dan & his family in your thoughts & prayers.

Night Swimming

The Arce's invited us to go night swimming a few weeks ago. We trekked the two blocks to their house in our bathing suits and had a great time. Their pool was perfect for the big kids, but a little chilly for Carly, so she & I stayed in the 93 degree spa. Very relaxing!!! Isn't Carly's bathing suit (compliments of the Sams family) cute?

Blackmail

Here are a couple blackmail photos of Carly & Justin that we can use when they are teenagers to get them to do what we want. I have yet to get one of Chase, but I don't think he'll care what pictures we have when he is in his teens anyway. Go figure! :)

Justin's Experiment

After school today, Justin & I finally got out the Chemo-Electro kit that Melissa & Owen gave to Justin LAST YEAR for his birthday (mom's bad!) and worked on one of the experiments. Here is Justin holding the experiment... he made a closed circuit using jumpers with alligator clips, a 9-volt battery, an LED light and a half of a potato sprinkled with salt!

Reptile Discovery

Both the boys were invited to a birthday party for one of Chase's classmates (Justin's classmate last year) at Montessori named Sam. We were told that his mom, Barbara, throws a good party. She hired a guy named Bruce Shwedick who runs Reptile Discovery out of Plant City, FL to come do a "show and tell" with various reptiles -- and boy was it cool! The kids & adults both enjoyed the presentation and then dinner, cake and beautiful weather in the backyard.

A Chinese Alligator

Chase feeding an African Monitor Lizard

Justin with a 16 foot Albino Rock Python from Asia

Good old Bruce really stressed the hand sanitizer after I had Carly pet "Banana Boy" who is 18 years old

Scott's Corn Maze

Justin's Cub Scout Pack organized an outing to Scott's Corn Maze up in Zellwood, Florida (45 minute drive) this past weekend to celebrate fall. It didn't quite feel like fall yet with temps in the upper 80s, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. They say the big corn maze can take about 45 minutes to over 2 hours to complete, but the boys were hot & too tired from Justin's birthday party sleepover the night before to complete more than 20 minutes or so. After we came out of the big maze, we realized they had a mini maze as well, but didn't bother trying that one. They also had a big 60-foot slide, huge tractor tires to play on, a playground, a tower so you can see the maze from above, hay rides, a market and a corn packaging plant. Now that we know what to expect, we'll plan better and go again next year!