Christmas, Round I

Since we were going to be on the road for the holidays, we celebrated our family Christmas a few days early.

The girls enjoyed opening all of their presents.

And helping Daddy open his.

Their big gift this year were baby doll cradles that my dad made.  He made one for me when I was a little girl and now Haley and Emily each have one.  Their cradles have each of their names on it with a heart.  Each girl got one of my old cabbage patch dolls, complete with a new outfit.  I also made their dolls a little pillow and blanket for their new beds.  It is definitely something that will last forever.

Thanksgiving

I am really behind on my posting and am finally able to start catching up.  So let's back up about a month....

We were very excited to be able to host Thanksgiving in our new home.  My Dad's side of the family came and celebrated with us.

I loved being in the kitchen and cooking a wonderful meal with my Grandmother.  She is such an amazing person and we made some wonderful memories that day.

The girls had fun playing with their Uncle Lincoln and Tante.

They also enjoyed bedtime stories with Granddad. 

One of my favorite moments was watching Haley play dominoes with the grown-ups.  I have so many memories of being at the domino table growing up and now it's her turn.

Even though she just wanted to knock them over the whole time.

Haley eventually got tired of it and Grandmom got in on the action.  That's where it got down to business.

After all the turkey had been eatin', we went out to a cute little town not very far from home and started getting in the Christmas spirit.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving and I look forward to celebrating many more while we are here.

Sea World

Recently, Sea World had a free day for military members and their families, so we took full advantage.

The first show that we went to had this funny guy.  He would go from platform to platform getting squirted by water.

Haley thought he was hilarious!  She would laugh hard each time he was silly.

Then of course we went and saw Shamu, a Sea World must. 

After all the shows it was time to play.  The girls and Zach climbed this huge net.  Even Emily was able to do it all by herself.

They got back down at the perfect time, all the Sesame Street friends were out.  Emily wasn't too sure about Cookie Monster sitting on her side of the stroller.

We went to say hi to Bert and Ernie, but Emily got a little scared and then that made Bert a little sad.

Then came the rides.  Zach rode this one with the girls, which was probably a mistake because he got a little queasy. 

Then he and Haley rode on the Shamu roller coaster.  This was a little more fun for him.

The girls and I went on Big Bird's Egg.  By then it was so hot that I'm not sure the girls really enjoyed it.

It was a wonderful day, full of fun memories, but this is my favorite one.

Our Journey

It all started with the moving van.  We waited three years to see it in our driveway and it finally came.  We explained to the girls that they were coming to put all our things on the truck and take it to San Antonio.  As they left, they waved and said "Bye bye toys!  See you in Texas!".

Our last night in Key West as a family, we had dinner at the very first place we ate dinner at when we first got there.  A nice way to come full circle.

The next morning we waved goodbye to Key West, and Daddy, and headed to Ft. Lauderdale to pick up my Dad, who was helping along the way.  We spent the night in Orlando and on day 2, made the drive up to Destin. 

We spent a full week in Destin at my Dad's house.  We went to the pool, the beach, an aquarium, watched lots of movies, ate lots of ice cream, and just enjoyed our time there.

After a week in Destin, it was time to head to Houston.  We ended up spending a little over a week there and lots of fun was had.

Finally, we were ready to get to San Antonio to pick up Zach and start our new adventure.  We spent a week in a hotel on base.  It was a nice setup, but we were ready to move in to our new house.  After a few days, we did! 

It was a long journey, but I am glad that it all went smoothly and that we are here.  Now we wait another week for Zach to come back and then we can start this new journey together.

We Made It!

After three weeks and 1559 miles, we have finally made it to San Antonio and moved into our new home.

It was a very long journey, more on that later, but we are here.  And it feels so good!

We love love love our new house!  It is in an older neighborhood and has giant trees in the front yard.  The inside is a difficult layout to describe, but it is perfect for us.  There are just enough quirky little things that make it fun.  The space is great and we are using every bit of it.  The girls love having their own rooms and have adjusted very well. 

We got very lucky because we had only seen pictures of the house online.  So the morning we moved in was the first time we stepped foot inside.

Our first morning in the house we had chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles, Haley's request.  It was fun eating in the house with nothing there.

Our move is over and now the San Antonio adventure begins!