Thanksgiving on Grandpa's farm

For Thanksgiving, all my family took off for Perry to stay at Grandpa Hoyt's for the weekend. We released a soft shell turtle into the creek before taking off and then it was off to Perry. We arranged for my cousin Quint to come over on Thanksgiving day to snap a few professional pictures of all of us. (Thanks again, Quint! Your so talented!!) We planned on everyone wearing fall colors and with careful planning and some last minute shuffling it all came together and we looked like a colorful family tree! After a delicious Thanksgiving lunch we all watched Luke dive into his belated birthday cake! Aunt Katie made Luke a Drumstick cake and he seemed to really like it! Then we took off on the buggy and go cart to go feed the cows.
We rode over to the pond to see what the gators were up to. The next day we took a few tractor rides and saw off the Kimbles, Baileys and the Pitts. The house got a little quieter and Mom and Dad were ready to watch the kids for us on Saturday for the Rivalry game (UF vs FSU.) After 7 years of Gator victories, our streak came to a close. We headed back to Perry, slept in the next day, took the kids for one more trip out to feed the cows hay and cookies and then headed home. Grandparents are the best babysitters and our kids loved the extra time on the farm with them! As we pulled into Gainesville, we trotted over to pick out a Christmas tree. Wil and Elsie wore their Santa hats while we picked out the prettiest tree. You should have seen how helpful they were on the way home. They held onto the twine that held the tree to the top giggling all the way home!

Beds, games, ducks and broken bones!

Here is a little compilation of a football game, basketball game, after-church duck feeding and Wil's first broken bone! We decided it was time to move Wil's bed from a crib to a toddler bed. Somehow on the third night in his new bed, Wil fell out of the bed. He complained about his right shoulder so we took him to the pediatrician who sent us to get an x-ray and sure enough, he suffered a green stick fracture on his right clavicle. The orthopedist says it will be fully healed in about 2 weeks and that we are doing right by trying to keep it immobilized. Wil acts as crazy as ever and shows no signs that this has slowed him down one bit! He is expected to heal 100%. Thanks for everyone's prayers and thoughts.

Wil & Elsie's first road game

We took a long weekend getaway to Nashville to take the kids to their first away game when the Gators played Vanderbuilt. Because Jon had similar plans as ours-he just wasn't traveling with a potty-training 2 year old!-we were able to hook up with him and got to experience some pretty cool things together! Jon was so sweet to hold a kid, hold the diaper bag, take a picture! By the end of the trip, Wil and Elsie were all over him! I think he may be their tallest new friend! We left Thursday night and made it a little past Atlanta. We beat Jon to Chattanooga so we made a brief stop at the Chattanooga Choo Choo and explored our railroad history! It is a real cool place with retired sleep cars that have been converted into hotel rooms and the train depot is now an upscale hotel lobby and nice restaurant. I loved the rose garden between the sleeper cars! Somebody really takes a lot of time maintaining it and I don't think they would have liked knowing that the hedge was so thick, it supported Elsie! When Jon called, we headed up the street to the Incline Railway to catch a ride to the top of Lookout Mountain! It was pretty steep and Wil serenaded the whold car with a round of "Old McDonald!" At the top we took in the sights and walked around an old civil war battle site converted into a park. Then it was down the mountain, back to the car and up the mountain again to Ruby Falls. All 5 of us were wowed by the rock formations underground in the cave system. But the climax was Ruby Falls with the color changing water fall! Gorgeous! The game was a lot of fun (because we won!) We put the kids down for a nap at Jon's hotel room (Thanks again, Jon!) and then went cruising in the double stroller downtown Nashville. The neon lights and live bands were awesome and we especially were taken in with the Bluegrass Inn. Thats where the bouncer let us stand in the doorway with the kids and watch the Brandon Giles band. It was a small band with 2 guitarists, a drummer and a very talented pianist who looked and performed like Jerry Lee Lewis! The drummer, Thumper was a real sweet guys and he gave Wil a signed drumstick and let him play around on his drumset! Wil was very proud of his drumstick-showed it off to everyone on the street and slept with it! On Sunday we headed back early enough to stop and "See Rock City!" It was so pretty with all the changing leaves and tiny gnomes and fairies! We wore the kids out and it was a good trip back home!

Halloween for a pig and dinosaur!

This year Halloween was too cool! It started with a victorious win at the Florida/Georgia game and continued on to Sunday. We invited Neil, Sabrina, Tanner and Eric over for lunch and then to our church's "Creepy Crawly Carnival!" I attempted to make some fun Halloween food. Let's just say that I am thankful food was available at church! But the Witch's Brew and Booger Juice was good! Tanner got to make a necklace with our beads and we all had our fill of french fries and salad! The carnival had so many cool things like bounce houses, hay rides pulled with antique tractors, fun activities for the kids, a fire engine, helicopter and best of all-free hot air balloon rides! You had to wait about 45 minutes for a 2 minute ride up and then down, but it was still awesome! We loved seeing the heat rise into the huge balloon and take us higher. The Hollingtons went first while the Spigelmans took pictures and then we watched and photographed the Spiegelmans. After our rides, we headed home for some trick-or-treating. We had never trick-or-treated in our neighborhood so we really enjoyed seeing all the neighbors (and got extra candy from a few of them!) Tanner and Eric did a good job teaching Wil and Elsie how it was done! All 4 kids were excited, mannered and just plain cute! Now what do we do with all this candy?