Calib headed to the airport this morning for a trip to Ohio (just real quick- he'll be back Sunday!), but Asa and I were up early for his flight. I got tons of stuff done this morning, but I'm really losing steam. But, catching up the blog is on my to do-list and that doesn't take a whole lot out of me, so here we are.
When I last left you, Hayden and I were working on cleaning up the old desk that we nabbed from my grandma's coal cellar.
It cleaned up pretty well, and Hayden is using it as a night stand. It fits in pretty well in his Harry Potter themed room.
We also finally took care of the last couple of boxes of things I brought back from Ohio. A lot of it was books, that ended up on the shelf above their closet to add to the Harry Potter room.
We've had some cold days in Florida recently. Every now and again we'll be in the high 70s, but mostly we've been hanging out in the 60s. It has made for some nice nights for a fire.
We usually do hot dogs out by the fire, but Peyton isn't a fan. I lured him outside with some charcuterie though, and he was on board.
The marshmallows don't hurt either.
A couple of Saturday's ago, Asa and I headed out to Orlando and stopped by Parksdale Farm Market to pick up some things for various gift boxes.
Also, I might have had breakfast by tasting all the various citrus samples. I'm ready for it to be strawberry shortcake season again, though. Parksdale has the BEST Strawberry Shortcake.
We planned on doing Universal, but I wanted to stop by Disney Springs for lunch (food options are better here for sure!) It's cute all decked out for Christmas.
But I really wanted to check out the Christmas Tree Trail. They've had it for a couple years now, but we'd never made it over. It sounded like the sort of thing that would be uber crowded (because the parks at the holidays are BANANAS!) But, we got there right at open and it was nearly empty.
So the Christmas Tree Trail is just like it sounds. It's a trail of Disney themed Christmas trees. You're greeted with a monorail themed tree at the very start.
And then all the trees have their own theme and their own little spot. You really need to look at them to get all the details. The Pluto tree had a chain of dog collars!
The Beauty and the Beast tree was full of candles and books.
The Frozen tree even had a couple of carrots in honor of Olaf and Sven.
The Princess and the Frog tree was Mardi Gras inspired with masks and beads.
The Little Mermaid Tree was one of my favorites.
It even has a dinglehopper!
The Alice in Wonderland tree was full of cards and clocks.
While the Haunted Mansion tree won for the creepiest.
The Pinocchio tree had one loan branch sticking out for Pinocchio's ever growing nose.
But it also included some really cute details like puppet strings.
Some toppers were really fun, like the Dumbo tree that had Dumbo's trunk holding the feather.
And the Mary Poppins tree had an umbrella for the topper!
I personally loved the Tangled tee with the frying pans and the lanterns.
They were all super cute trees, so if you're there anyway, it's totally worth the stop.
We decided to do lunch at D Luxe Burger. It's been awhile since we were there- now you don't even have to ask for all the dipping sauces, you can get them ALL yourself!
Asa got some spicy burger, and I got the holiday turkey burger. It had squash and cranberry jam on it! So yummy. I wonder how long they'll have that one. Maybe we can nab it one more time. I've actually convinced Peyton to go to Disney Springs after Christmas because they're doing a Kingdom Hearts preview!
After lunch we headed over to Universal.
Where we traded in our Mickey inspired trees for Hogwarts and the Grinch.
It's the first time I've ever seen Seuss Landing all decorated for the holidays.
And we got to see Grinchmas.
Also all decorated for Christmas: Hogsmeade!
On our way out, we also stopped by Voodoo Doughnuts and got some to bring back to the boys. This new-ish location hasn't been here very long, so it was our first time there.
That same weekend we got into the Christmas spirit by putting up the Christmas lights.
Look how cute my little squirrel is! And I nabbed some poinsetta's at Duncheons.
The day we put up the lights it was hot, like in the 80s. So we decided to cool off after putting up all the lights, we should hit the pool. In all of my 37 years I'd never put up Christmas lights and then gone swimming. In our past houses, the pool would be too cold, even if it was in the 80s- just because of the cold nights and such. But here, one of our pools is heated! So, if you get a warm day, you can take advantage.
The house does look all pretty too!
We also put up the decorations inside, including parachuting Santa. My grandma had HUNDREDS of Santas, and while everyone could take as many as they wanted, since I was sorting through them I took quite a few (plus we'd always been low on Christmas Decorations). Parachuting Santa was the very last santa left in the pile and Peyton and I were about to take him out to give him to goodwill when I decided I was going to take him instead. I'm glad I did, he's super fun!
On my Sattler family side, I also recently was given my grandparents light up tree.
Of course, we've been watching football here- despite how terrible the Bucs are YET AGAIN. But, you know, nachos help. And tater tots help. And then we decided TATER TOT NACHOS would doubly help.
We've been playing lots of board games too, bringing out some of the oldies but goodies. I think everyone is looking forward to the new one's for Christmas (I'm not spoiling anything, because not only do the boys not read my blog- but they also know they always get a new game on Christmas).
Asa and I both got a BOGO PDQ offer in our email, and Hayden had a library event, so we dropped him off and then the rest of us went out for dinner.
Peyton had a library event a little later that night, so on the way home we swung by to drop him off.
I found Calib wandering the political section. And then I noticed it was like all Fox News crap. At first I thought 'well, Pasco county, you know?' but then I noticed the next section over there was all the Huffington Post type crap. So, my question is, are all libraries divided like this? Or just mine?
Oh hey, but while we're at the library, lets say hi to my ceiling tile!
Another Saturday we headed out to chop down our Christmas tree at Lazy Lay Acres in Dade City.
Now, they have lots of big, beautiful trees. But, getting one of those just isn't the Waterstraut way. No, instead we find the ugliest tree, the worst one we can get our hands on, and we make that one our tree. Because every tree deserves to be a Christmas tree. I often wonder if people think we're weird walking from ugly tree to ugly tree calling each other over to see how bad they look.
This year Calib found one that was about 5 feet tall with a 7 foot diameter. Clearly someone had taken the top of the tree and the bottom 5 feet was what was left. I considered it, but we couldn't figure out where we would be able to put it in the house.
Instead, we ended up with this beauty. It lacked so much of a bottom, it just looked like a normal oak tree or something. It was amazing.
So Asa chopped that sucker down. It was so bad this year, they only charged us $15 for it. Trees are supposed to be $5 per foot, and this one was about 7 feet. Usually they charge us $20 for our ugly tree. I think maybe we should judge how terrible the tree is by how much of a discount they give us.
While they wrapped it all up for us, we visited with the baby farm animals.
This little piggy sure loved Peyton.
Once we get those ugly trees home and put them up, and put lights on them, they never look as bad as they do in the field.
But, depending on the tree, we have to be real selective with the ornaments that go on it. There's not a ton of space on this one.
But I think it looks cute all decorated.
Sattler family tradition says you get Chinese food for dinner when you get the Christmas tree (for real, this has happened every year for my whole entire life. I was sipping eggdrop soup from a baby spoon people). But, Hayden isn't a huge fan of Chinese. So this year I decided to do something my grandma Ainsworth used to do on cookie day- get Chinese food AND pizza to make everyone happy (and because they were right next door to each other, which they so happen to be at the entrance to my subdivision, it's fate!)
Speaking of meals, we got rained out of a Disney day, but we got to have last minute dinner with Tim & Emily. We cook the same thing (this time it was Nancy Reagan Mac & Cheese) and then have dinner with them over Skype. It's kind of awesome.
Oh, and speaking of free food, we've been picking up our free Panera Bagels every time we go by. Fun!
I don't know if I mentioned it in my last blog, but our behind neighbors got a new puppy. We offered free puppy sitting whenever they need it, and we've been over a few times to check in on Murphy. It's kind of the best thing ever. You get all the puppy snuggles but without any of the puppy work!
But of course, when we go over we also play with our old buddy Huck. He likes his new little brother!
Speaking of animals, Dipper had an incident. We're not even sure what happened. Once day he was fine, and then he had a huge scratch on his face that he kept messing with and making it worse. So, then he spent like 10 days in the cone. You can see the progression though, it's healed up and he's doing well. The hair is even growing back now.
I suspect Maybel was the culprit of the original scratch. She kind of rules the roost and puts all the animals in check, and sometimes Dipper gets a bit too out of line.
Calib gave the dogs a bath, but forgot to close his bedroom door and Etta taught him a lesson. Wet dogs in your bed are no fun.
And now I leave you with cute doggie pictures.
Next Up: Our Christmas punch board complete with all our fun holiday traditions.
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