Happy 2014, blog followers! I generally don't chunk things off into good or bad years, but I guess that's the popular thing to do. So I'll go ahead and put 2013 into the 'good year' column. We did do a favorite part of the year, instead of favorite part of the day on New Years Eve.
Asa: Vegas/Hobbit Day
Corinne: Vegas/Seeing the sunrise & sunset on my birthday
Calib: The Redwoods/Oregon Coast
Peyton: Oregon Coast/Getting Maybel
Hayden: Getting Maybel
All good times.
We did make a list on New Years Day of 14 things to do in 2014 (I didn't do my usual birthday list this year.) Here it is, in no particular order.
1. Wait in line to get good seats to Fantasmic
2. Visit all 4 Disney Parks in one day
3. See the Declaration of Independence
4. Ride every ride, and go to every show in the Magic Kingdom
5. Eat Beignets at Cafe Du Monde
6. Celebrate Hobbit Day
7. Take a trip to the Everglades
8. Canoe down the Hillsbrough River
9. Go to the Tampa Bay Rays home opener
10. Swim at a new Disney hotel pool
11. Have an unplugged day
12. Ride the new Snow White ride on opening day
13. Eat a Jumbo Slice
14. Visit George Washingtons grave
In addition to all of that, this year is shaping up to be the year of the mini-vacations. And my mini, I mean we're not heading to the opposite coast, checking off Hawaii or going anywhere further north than Ohio. But, we are planning trips to Tennessee, New Orleans, Washington D.C, Ohio, Disney and South Florida.
Asa might even graduate this year. It'll be close, I think he's over-extending himself to expect that. 2015 is much more realistic. I'm hearing, too, that 2015 is going to be the Hawaii year. So, we'll see how that goes.
Back to this week though, Mom came to visit and there was lots of game playing. Friday, after a trip to Costco (a new membership and groceries thanks to mom!), we pulled out lots of our new stuff. A new favorite has got to be cockroach poker. It was a game given to us by Clint and Jess for Christmas. Basically, you pass around cards either telling the truth, or bluffing on what the card is. The person who gets the card can choose to say you're lying, telling the truth, or look at it and pass it on. If you're wrong, or the next person calls the card correctly (true/false), the card gets put in front of you. Once you have 4 of the same in front of you, you lose. The boys LOVE it. I cannot tell for the life of me when Hayden is lying or telling the truth. He giggles at EVERYTHING. And it's kind of hilarious.
Gator Golf has also proven to be more of a hit than I ever could have imagined. The boys are LOVING it. It was a total impulse buy, but when I saw it for $3 on Black Friday, I figured why not. Best $3 I ever spent. They've more than already gotten my money out of it.
The new nerf dart guns are also proving to be a hit. One problem though: they hit HARD, and from long distances.. like back of the house to the front door. So, Hayden put on his 'saftey gear' and everyone else stood at the back of the house trying to get him. He danced around, and only got hit a few times. Pretty entertaining.
Wits and Wagers was suggested to me by my cousin Tim, and we love it. It'll make for a great game-night game with our friends, and the boys are enjoying it as well. You're given a question in which the answer is a number. You take a guess and write it down on your board, once everyone puts it down you use your chips to wager on who is correct. Most chips after 7 questions wins. Total fun.
Saturday we headed out to the beach, despite the total lack of beach weather. (I have been so disappointed in Florida weather since I got back-- cloudy, sometimes rainy, and never very warm-- boo!) Asa had to work, since he had off earlier in the week, but the rest of us went. We hardly ever hit the beach unless visitors are here, but it's always a fun trip.
Peytons face here accurately depicts the temperature of the Gulf this time of year.
Calib braved the cold water though, and ended up giving both his brothers piggy back rides out to the rocks to look for crabs and other sea animals.
They didn't find anything out in the rocks, but a guy next to them caught a baby shark, so they got a close up view before he threw it back. Then we spotted a group of four dolphins about 10 feet out from where the boys were. I didn't grab my camera in time to get a picture of the shark, or all the dolphins at once.
Peyton and I constructed a sandman, while Calib and Hayden found all the buttons, eyes, and arms. They even came up with a seaweed scarf.
Calib buried Hayden in the sand, and Peyton and I relaxed while mom finished her book.
Grandma even treated us all to ice cream and smoothies at the snack bar, before we headed home.
Sunday was the last football day of the regular season. There wasn't enough food or alcohol to drink/eat away our feelings from this season, but we sure tried. One last Taco/Nacho bar, and Asa's giant bottle of Rum from Costco certainly helped with the Bucs final failure of the season.
Though none of my secondary teams made the playoffs, one game came down to either the Steelers and Chargers heading into the playoffs. Things got really ugly, the Chargers earned their own playoff birth in an overtime game, and Calib pouted in the recliner for a good hour. I couldn't even rub in the fact that I beat him in our Fantasy Football Superbowl! I lost him to last year in the Super Bowl and I was so excited to finally win, but real life trumps fantasy, and he was already upset about that.
Continuing on with my winning streak, after playing my friend Nate for MONTHS on scrabble with friends and losing EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. I finally beat him! He said it was the first time anyone had beat him at the game. I'm pretty proud of myself!
Asa picked up a Saturday shift to get New Years Eve off. We got up, had a big brunch, and headed down to Venice, where my grandparents used to live. Because we spent many New Years Eve's there when they lived there, its become kind of a tradition to go for the day. We stopped in downtown to go to the ice cream shop, and then went to the very touristy Pleasures and Treasures shop where the boys each picked out a few shells.
After we went to downtown, we went out to Sharky's beach. It wasn't freezing out, but it wasn't too warm either. I loved that Peyton wore his sock monkey hat out to the beach. He loves the thing, and has been wearing it everywhere. He looks so adorable in it. We stuck our toes in (it's much too cold to swim in), and played some games at the beach and threw around the frisbee and football.
Our dip kiss picture was no nearly as cute as last years, thanks to all the clouds. But, Asa did come up with a new picture: the self taken dip picture.
Sharky's has a huge addition to their restaurant, a much more upscale place, but we kept with the traditional deck eating. The food is always so yummy. Nothing beats eating seafood, outside, right next to the Gulf.
After dinner, we walked out on the Pier.
Determined to see the sunset, we sat down to play some cockroach poker and wait for the 5:45 sunset.
Even though it was getting colder and colder by the minute.
5:45 came and went. We all talked about how spectacular the sunset was. I'm sure it was very pretty behind the clouds, but really the pictures tell it all. Still, tradition of being on the beach on New Years Eve for sunset is alive.
We were home in time to celebrate the New Year with fake wine, games, fireworks in the neighborhood and a sleepover with grandma.
New Years Day, Asa worked for the overtime. We did manage to squeeze in our traditional New Years Day cookout despite the rain and (more) crappy weather. We are a little stubborn when it comes to our family traditions-- can you tell? Mom and I then went out a did a bit of shopping.
While we were out, Calib made me my trophy (per my request) for winning the Super Bowl. It's sitting proudly on the bookshelf in my room. I, in turn, bought him a tube of cookie dough so he could eat his feelings. A few days removed, he was a much better sport about it all. And check out his work on that trophy. He did that all by himself, I think it's awesome.
On our adventures out shopping, mom got me this special yarm stuff to make these scarfs. Really, you MAKE them.. in less than 2 minutes. I'm wearing mine today (because it's in the FORTIES-- I told you, crappy weather)
We also had the start the year off right with our first Low Country Boil of the year. A must have while mom's visiting.
I took mom to the airport yesterday, and she made it back to all the snow and cold weather in Toledo. We'll be seeing her next month in Tennessee.
And now it's back to regular life. Our Christmas decorations are half down, our tree has been un-decorated (but still in the livingroom, today is the last day we can drop it off at the community center to be turned into mulch, nothing like waiting until the last minute), and I've got a good start on our board for January. New this year: Buddy Day, in which the boys are going to TEACH each other something. I'm also testing out having whole days of a Science, History, and Writing concept, instead of a little bit each day. Math we'll keep on with each day, but there's no new concept weeks because this month we're all doing everything together. We'll see how it goes. We can always change it around if it isn't working. Yay for flexibility! My new calendar even goes into February which hits Hayden's birthday and starts our two week Olympic madness!
Next Up: Cleaning up the house, and getting back to work. But we MIGHT squeeze in a Disney day there too.
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