The Wein Family

The warm(er) weather must be calling them home!!! Although it was cold for Florida standards, it wasn't nearly as cold as in Montreal, so the Wein family made their second trip down to Celebration in one year a couple weeks before Christmas. Isabelle, Eloise, Justin & Chase played together like they saw each other yesterday and Audrey & Carly had fun getting to know each other through conversation and play. And it was fun to catch up with Ly & Matt as well. It's too bad they moved (over 3 years ago!) but they still own their apartment downtown, so there's still hope they'll move back!

Sleeping Bags!

I think the boys used their new Scout sleeping bags every day for a week after they got them. Here are Chase and Justin & Carly snuggled up in theirs...

Carly & Santa

Santa came to visit Carly's classroom this year and Carly is... not too fond of him. She always says "I don't like him" and "no, I don't want him to bring me presents". She did accept a little package from him, albeit from the safety of mom's arms, and then we called it a day.

Carly's class waiting for Santa to arrive

Carly receiving her gift

Carly's first reaction to "it's your turn"

Carly & her best friend Addison

Den 15 Holiday Party

We had our annual Den 15 Family Holiday Party at Moss Park this year. It was a beautiful day to enjoy a potluck lunch, explore the outdoors, learn some knot tying skills and go fishing & boating...

Some of the younger brothers, who are in Den 7

Making tunnels in a huge sand mound

Learning some knot tying skills with the dads

Playing a rope tossing game

A few of the boys in the tree Roger used to climb when he was young

They each received a really nice Scout sleeping bag as a gift

John, Owen, Justin, Carly, William & Ryan (Josh couldn't make it)

Fishing off the dock on Lake Mary Jane only brought in one fish!

Erec has half the boys on his boat while the rest are on Roger's dad's pontoon boat

Rhett seemed very relaxed on his first boat ride

Our Christmas Tree

Our church hosts a small Christmas tree "lot" every year, so we went down the first weekend in December (which is actually early for us) to pick out a tree. Took us all of 10 minutes to find one, have it pulled out, cut and put on our car! It doesn't quite measure up to the experience of hiking around to find the perfect tree to cut down ourselves like we used to do in California growing up, but it was easy! Here are a few pictures from those 10 minutes. Check out the cool "triangle" base of the tree :)

Happy Birthday Popi!

We celebrated Roger's dad's birthday this year with a boat ride, dinner at their house and then cake, ice cream and presents. Some of life's simplest pleasures! Happy birthday Popi! We love you so much!!!

Thanksgiving at the Merrill's

Gosh, we took so many pictures during our stay at the Merrill's house in Brentwood (just outside of Nashville) that it was hard to narrow it down to these 10 - 20. We never traveled farther than the local grocery store, Starbucks and community parks, but we had a fantastic time! We stayed in our jammies late, worked in the kitchen, played games, explored their neighborhood, jumped on the trampoline, ate a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, celebrated Hadley's birthday, watched movies, shot bb guns and much more... it felt like we were at home. Thanks so much to the Merrill family for hosting us. We can't wait to make the trip again!

Rock City

On our drive up to Nashville to visit the Merrill family for Thanksgiving, we stopped at a place called Rock City on the border of Georgia and Tennessee. It's at the top of Lookout Mountain where you can see 7 states and walk through natural rock formations and gardens. We walked around for a couple hours, had lunch and then continued on our journey to Nashville... very cool.

We were delighted to see a Starbuck's since it was cold up there!

Some of the paths were very narrow

Justin walking the path

Carly & Chase under an arch

Our goblins under the Goblin Underpass

The See Rock City birdhouse

The kids at the top of Rock City

On the suspension bridge

You can see seven states from here!

I think this lookout was called Lover's Leap